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SELECT ORATIONS 



SELECT ORATIONS 



ILLUSTRATING 

AMERICAN POLITICAL 

HISTORY 



selected and edited by 
Samuel Bannister Harding, Ph. D. 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN INDIANA UNIVKRSITY 

AUTHOR OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION IN MASSACHUSETTS' GREEK GODS, HEROES 

AND MEN (collaborated); THE CITY OF THE SEVEN HILLS (COLLABORATED); 

THE STORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES; ESSENTIALS IN MEDIEVAL AND 

MODERN HISTORY, ETC. 



INDIANAPOLIS 

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I 908 



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' IBHARY of OGNGRE«SJ 
two tionles Hecmwe.' 

OCT 7 i^^^ 
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Copyright, 1908 
By SAMUEL BANNISTER HARDING 



PREFACE 

A GREAT part of a people's history, where self-govern- 
ment prevails, may be found in the speeches of its public 
men. Such utterances are at once an index to the mental 
caliber of its electors and representatives, a measure of 
prevalent prejudices and predilections, and a synopsis of 
its political history. Pericles's oration over the first dead of 
the Peloponnesian war, and Demosthenes's orations against 
Philip of Macedon, have long been recognized as important 
documents in the study of Greek history. Cicero's orations 
against Verres and on the Catilinian conspiracy aid much 
to an understanding of the last period of the Roman re- 
public. And it is a commonplace to say that the framework 
at least of a knowledge of modern English history must be 
sought in the speeches delivered in Parliament and in pub- 
lic meetings. In our own country, where government pro- 
ceeds so largely in the open, this is especially true. Gov- 
ernment here is the concern of the people themselves, and on 
all questions of public policy they must be consulted and 
informed. Public speeches with us, while not the sole means, 
are an important means to the formation and expression of 
what Sir Robert Peel once somewhat cynically called "that 
great compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feel- 
ing, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs, 
which is called public opinion." And the record of a peo- 
ple's varying public opinion in political matters, it may be 
asserted, gives the essence of its political history. "He who 
moulds public sentiment," said Lincoln in his first debate 
with Douglas, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or 
pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions pos- 
sible or impossible to be executed." 



vi Preface 

The chief justification for the present volume of selec- 
tions is the lack hitherto of any adequate collection of Amer- 
ican political orations which comes within the compass of a 
single volume, and hence is usable for schools, clubs, and 
teachers' institutes. The preparation of the book was first 
proposed to the author by Mr. David W. Sanders, of Cov- 
ington, Ind., whose wide acquaintance among the teachers 
of the State showed him the opening for it; and the assist- 
ance which the author has received from Mr. Sanders as the 
work has progressed, in the selection of the orations and in 
determining the general plan and scope of the book, he 
wishes here to acknowledge in the fullest manner. 

The purpose of the selections, it must be understood, is 
primarily historical ; they are designed to illustrate the po- 
litical history and development of the United States. Con- 
siderations of oratorical excellence were not disregarded, it 
is true; and it is believed that examples of the best public 
speaking of every epoch of our history will here be found, 
and in sufficient variety. But it is not as a manual of oratory 
that the book is offered to the public. In every instance the 
tests applied in determining the inclusion or exclusion of a 
speech were these: Did it exert important influence on po- 
litical action or political opinion at the time it was deliv- 
ered.'' And will it, better than other speeches of the period, 
enable us to penetrate back into the spirit of the time.'' 

It is perhaps needless to say that the choice has been 
made without regard to the editor's personal opinion as to 
which party or which position on any given question was 
right. Indeed, one of the benefits wliich it is hoped may 
come from the reading of the selections is a growth in that 
wide tolerance of mind which sees that at no time does any 
one party have a monopoly of political truth, and that wise 
political action can come only from weighing all the argu- 
ments in view of all the circumstances of a given case. 

The wealth of material from which to select, and the 
reduction to the compass of a half-hour's reading of 
speeches which in some cases took several days to deliver. 



Preface vii 

have been the chief difficulties of the task. It is hoped that 
a sufficiently large and representative list of names is pre- 
sented^ though it is inevitable that the omission of some 
notable orators and orations will be lamented. 

The attempt has been made to confine the annotations to 
the narrowest limits possible, consistent with the aim of in- 
telligibility. Where practicable, the information needed has 
been given in the historical introductions prefixed to the 
different sections and to the separate orations. In this way 
it is hoped that the force of the oration will not often be 
broken in the reading by tlie necessit}^ of referring to the 
foot of the page or elsewhere to find the meaning of some 
intruding editorial symbol. 

S. B. H. 

Bloomington, Ind., September 21, 19O8. 



CONTENTS 

I. THE REVOLUTION 

Page 

Introductory Sketch 1 

1. James Otis: The Writs of Assistance (176l) . . . . 5 

2. John Adams: The Boston Massacre (1770) 11 

3. Patrick Henry: Liberty or Death (1775) 24^ 

4. John Dickinson: On Taking up Arms (1775).. 30 

5. John Witherspoon : The Necessity of Confed- 

eration (1776) 39 

II. ADOPTING THE CONSTITUTION 

Introductory Sketch 47 

6. James Wilson: For the Constitution (1787) 52 

,7. Patrick Henry: Against the Constitution (1788) 66 

8. James Madison: For the Constitution (1788) .... 88 

9. Alexander Hamilton: For the Constitution 

(1788) 103 

III. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED 

Introductory Sketch 122 

10. Fisher Ames: The British Treaty (1796) 125 

11. George Washington : Farewell Address (1796). 150 

12. Thomas Jefferson: First Inaugural Address 

(1801) 164 

ix 



X Contents 

Page 

13. John Randolph: Against War with Great Britain 

(1811) 172 

14. William Pinkney: The Missouri Compromise 

(1820) 191 

15. Daniel Webster: Reply to Hayne (1830) 212 

IV. THE CONTEST OVER SLAVERY 

Introductory Sketch 242 

16. John C. Calhoun: Slavery a Positive Good 

(1837) 247 

17. Wendell Phillips: Eulogy of Garrison (1879)- 258 

18. Henry Clay: Compromise of 1850 (1850) 267 

19. Charles Sumner: The Crime Against Kansas 

(1856) 292 

20. Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas's Opening 

Speech (1858) '. 309 

21. Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Lincoln's Reply 

(1858) 322 

22. William H. Seward: The Irrepressible Conflict 

(1858) 342 

V. CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 

Introductory Sketch 358 

23. Jefferson Davis: On Withdrawing from the 

Union (I86I) 362 

24. Abraham Lincoln: First Inaugural Address 

(1861) 370 

25. Alexander H. Stephens: On the Confederate 

Constitution (I86I) 382 



Contents xi 

Page 

26. Henry Ward Beecher: Liverpool Address 

(1863) 392 

27. Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg Address (1863). 414 

28. Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address 

(1865) 417 

29. Andrew Johnson : Presidential Plan of Recon- 

struction (1867) 421 

30. Thaddeus Stevens: Radical View of Reconstruc- 

tion (1867) 434 

31. Benjamin R. Curtis: Defense of President John- 

son (1868) 443 

32. Carl Schurz: Plea for a General Amnesty 

(1872) 467 

33. Henry W. Grady: The New South (1886) 489 

34. Booker T. Washington : The Race Problem 

(1895) 501 



The Revolution 

That there were two sides to the controversy between the 
colonies and the mother country is now generally recog- 
nized, although we as Americans still have difficulty in do- 
ing full justice to the arguments in behalf of Great Britain. 
Mr. Leck}^, in his able and dispassionate review of these 
differences, says: "England was originally quite right in 
her contention that it was the duty of the colonists to con- 
tribute something to the support of the army which de- 
fended the unity of the Empire. She was quite right in her 
belief that in some of the colonial constitutions the executive 
was far too feeble, that the line which divided liberty from 
anarchy was often passed, and that the result was pro- 
foundly and permanently injurious to the American char- 
acter. She was also, I think, quite right in ascribing a great 
part of the resistance of America to the disposition, so com- 
mon and so natural in dependencies, to shrink as much as 
possible from any expense that could possibly be thrown 
on the mother country, and in forming a very low estimate 
of those ambitious lawyers, newspaper writers, preachers, 
and pamphleteers who, in New England at least, were la- 
boring with untiring assiduity to win popular applause 
by sowing dissension between England and her colonies. 
But the Americans were only too well justified in asserting 
that the suppression of several of their industries and the 
monopoly by England of some of the chief branches of 



2 Select Orations 

their trade, if they did not benefit the mother country, at 
least imposed sacrifices on her colonies fully equivalent to 
a considerable tax. They were also quite justified in con- 
tending that the power of taxation was essential to the im- 
portance of their Assemblies, and that an extreme jealousy 
of any encroachment on this prerogative was in perfect ac- 
cordance with the traditions of English liberty. They had 
before their eyes the hereditary revenue, the scandalous 
pension list, the monstrous abuses of patronage, in Ireland, 
and they were quite resolved not to suffer similar abuses in 
America. The judges only held their seats during the royal 
pleasure. Ministerial patronage in the colonies, as else- 
where, was often grossly corrupt, and in the eyes of the 
colonists the annual grant was the one efficient control upon 
maladministration." {History of England in the Eighteenth 
Centunj, IV, p. 111.) 

Important differences, moreover, existed between the 
views which prevailed of the English constitution at home 
and in the colonies. 

The English government held the present view, i.e. that 
Parliament possesses an absolute legal supremacy on all 
subjects; that throughout the whole of the British Empire 
its statutes are law; and that no person or court any- 
where has power to nullify those statutes on the ground 
of unconstitutionality or otherwise. (Dicey, Law of the 
Constitution, ch. i.) The members of the House of Com- 
mons were not regarded as local rejjresentatives, but as in- 
dividually and collectively representing every person owing 
allegiance to the king — every blade of grass, every clod of 
earth. Consequently, the colonies were thought to be rep- 
resented quite as much as the great manufacturing towns 
of Leeds, Birmingham, and the like, which until 1832 
elected no separate representatives to Parliament. 

The American colonists, on the other hand, held to an 



The Revolution 3 

older idea, which had been advanced in the controversy be- 
tween Crown and Parliament in the seventeenth century 
and then laid aside, namely, that there were certain funda- 
mental laws which even Parliament could not alter; and 
this idea was strengthened by the new democratic doc- 
trines embodied in the writings of Locke, Rousseau, and 
others, with their emphasis on a "social compact" as the 
basis of all government. The colonists also regarded 
representation as necessarily local, not general; and they 
could not see how they were represented by persons in 
whose election they had no right of participation. 

It may freely be conceded that legally the British minis- 
ters were right in their interpretation of the constitution, 
and the colonists wrong; but this by no means invalidates 
the justice of the American claims from a political stand- 
point. It is noteworthy that although the supremacy of 
Parliament throughout the British Empire is now uni- 
versally admitted, no attempt is made to assert that su- 
premacy in the taxing of any of the self-governing colonies. 

The oratorical material from which to choose in illus- 
trating the Revolution is limited. Many important speeches 
were unreported, and of others we have only fragmentary 
accounts, preserved by tradition. Washington was a man 
of action, not a speaker. Jefferson was an indifferent 
orator, and preferred to express himself with the pen. And 
Samuel Adams, in spite of the flood of newspaper articles 
which he wrote, and resolutions and other state papers 
which he inspired, seems seldom to have attempted a^ 
speech of any length; the oration on American independ- 
ence, published in his name in London, in 1776, and now 
often met with in oratorical reprints, has been shown by 
his biographer to be a forgery. (Wells, Life of Samuel 
Adams, II, pp. 139-40.) Nevertheless, there exists a sup- 



4 Select Orations 

ply of valuable and interesting material sufficient for our 
I^urpose. 

James Otis's speech on the Writs of Assistance (1761) 
is here presented partly because of the great influence 
which it exerted at the time, and partly to show something 
of the legal views which underlay the American resistance. 
John Adams's defense of the soldiers concerned in the Bos- 
ton Massacre (1770) is valuable for its recital of the facts 
of that much misrepresented affair; and also for its evi- 
dence of the existence on the American side both of a mob 
spirit which might disgrace their cause by its excesses, and 
of a sober^ sane, conservative leadership wliich dared risk 
unpopularity by opposing popular injustice. Patrick 
Henry's address on the necessity of arming the colony of 
Virginia (1775) is essential to any collection such as this, 
both because of the fiery patriotism which it reveals, and 
tlie flaming eloquence of its language. Following this 
comes the address, composed by John Dickinson and issued 
by Congress (1775), to show the reasons for the American 
taking up of arms. Finally the section closes with the brief 
speech of Dr. Witherspoon (1776) on the necessity of 
confederation among the colonies — an address which brings 
us to the greatest achievement of the Revolutionary period 
next to independence itself, namely the formation of the 
Articles of Confederation, and which forms a good point 
of departure for the study of the next section, on the for- 
mation of the Federal Constitution. 

The following are among tlie most valuable books for this 
period: Trevelyan's American Revolution (3 vols.); Fiske's 
American Revolution (2 vols.) ; Hildreth's History of the 
United States, vol. IV; Bancroft's History of the United 
States, vol. VI; Woodburn's Lechy's American Revolution, 
and Van Tyne's American Revolution, are the best short 
histories of the period. 



1. JAMES OTIS, OF Massachusetts.— ON WRITS OF 
ASSISTANCE 

(Delivered in Boston, February, 1761.) 

The "navigation laws" of England, though by no 
means so unfavorable to the colonies as is often supposed, 
were nevertheless a prolific source of quarrel between the 
mother country and her dependencies, and for long periods 
were systematically evaded by smuggling. During the 
French and Indian War, New England merchants supplied 
French fleets, French garrisons, and French colonies with 
provisions ; and it was this disloyal traffic which determined 
the British government to attempt a more rigorous enforce- 
ment of the laws. Accordingly writs of assistance were 
issued in ^lassachusetts, following the practice of the Eng- 
lish exchequer, which authorized search for smuggled goods 
wherever and whenever the officers pleased. 

The question of the legality of these writs was argued 
in the negative before the Superior Court of Massachusetts 
by James Otis, Jr., "the most able, manly, and commanding 
character of his age at the [Boston] bar," in a notable 
speech of five hours' length. John Adams in later years 
said: "Otis was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of 
classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary 
of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authori- 
ties, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a 
rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all 

James Otis, Jr. Born in Massachusetts. 17W; graduated from Harvard Col- 
lege, 1743; began the practice of law, 1748; first elected to the Massacliusetts 
legislature, 1761; delefjate to the "Stamp Act Congress," 1765; wounded in pri- 
vate quarrel and his reason shattered, 1769; died 1783. 



6 James Otis 

before him. American independence was then and there 
born. . . . Every man of an immense crowded au- 
dience apjjeared to me to go away as I did, readj^ to take 
arms against Writs of Assistance." 

On the question of the legality of these writs^ Otis seems 
to have been in the wrong. The view which he advanced 
that "an Act [of Parliament] against the constitution is 
void," was one that had been held in England by the op- 
ponents of Charles I. in the seventeenth century ; but by 
1761 this position was generally abandoned. To-day Par- 
liament is recognized as legally supreme throughout the 
British Empire, and its statutes (unlike those of the Amer- 
ican Congress and Legislatures) cannot be set aside as 
invalid on the ground of any alleged "unconstitutionality." 

The report of Otis's speech which has come down to us 
is but a bare summary, and contains little of the glowing 
eloquence which all accomits attribute to the speech itself. 
This report was written out some time later by John Adams, 
then a young lawj^er, from the fragmentary notes which 
he took at the time. (John Adams, Works, II, pp. 124", 
521-525.) The version of the speech here given differs in 
some essential particulars from the version usually printed. 



[James Otis, before the Massachusetts Superior Court, 
at Boston, in February, 1761.] 

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HoNORs : I was desired by one 
of the Court to look into the books, and consider 
the question now before them concerning Writs of 
Assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and now ap- 
pear not only in obedience to your order but likewise in 
behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented 
another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the 
subject. And I take this opportunity to declare, that 
whether under a fee or not, (for in such a cause as this I 



Writs of Assistance 7 

despise a fee,) I will to my dying day oppose, with all the 
powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments 
of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as 
this writ of assistance is. 

It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, 
the most destructive of English liberty and the funda- 
mental principles of law, that ever was found in an Eng- 
lish law book. I must therefore beg your honors' patience 
and attention to the whole range of an argument that may 
perhaps appear uncommon in many things, as well as to 
points of learning that are more remote and unusual; that 
the whole tendency of my design may the more easily be 
perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of 
them be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains 
in this cause, as I engaged in it from principle. I was 
solicited to argue this cause as Advocate General ; and be- 
cause I would not, I have been charged with desertion from 
my office. To this charge I can give a very sufficient an- 
swer. I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from 
the same principle ; and I argue it with the greater pleas- 
ure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we 
hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his 
throne that he "glories in the name of Briton", and that the 
privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most 
valuable prerogatives of his crown; and as it is in opposi- 
tion to a kind of power, the exercise of which in former 
periods of history cost one King of England [Charles I.] 
his head, and another [James II.] his throne. I have 
taken more pains in this cause than I ever will take again, 
although my engaging in this and another popular cause 
has raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely 
declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious 
name for conscience's sake ; and from my soul I despise 
all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my 
foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am 
determined to proceed. The only principles of public con- 
duct, that are worthy of a gentleman or a man, are to 



8 James Otis 

sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, 
to the sacred calls of his country. Tliese manly sentiments, 
in private life, make the good citizen; in public life, the 
patriot and the hero. I do not say, that wlien brought to 
the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be 
brought to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it 
will be then known how far I can reduce to practice prin- 
ciples which I know to be founded in truth. In the mean- 
time I Avill proceed to the subject of tliis writ. 

In the iirst place, may it please your honors, I will ad- 
mit that writs of one kind may be legal, — that is, special 
writs directed to special officers and to search certain 
houses, etc., specially set forth in the writ, may be granted 
by the Court of Exchequer at home upon oath, made be- 
fore the Lord Treasurer by the jjcrson who asks it, that 
he suspects such goods to be concealed in those very places 
he desires to search. The act of 14[th year of] Charles 
II., which Mr. Gridley [counsel for the petitioner] men- 
tions, proves this. And in this light the writ appears like 
a warrant from a Justice of the Peace to search for stolen 
goods. Your honors will find in the old books concerning 
the office of a Justice of the Peace precedents of general 
warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern 
books you will find only special warrants to search such 
and such houses, specially named, in which the complain- 
ant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are con- 
cealed; and will find it adjudged, that special warrants 
only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the 
writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. 
It is a power that places tlie liberty of every man in the 
hands of every petty officer. I say I admit that special 
writs of assistance, to search s^jecial places, may be 
granted to certain persons on oath; but I deny that the 
writ now prayed for can be granted — for I beg leave to 
make some observations on the writ itself, before I proceed 
to other acts of Parliament. In the first place, the writ is 
universal, being directed "to all and singular justices. 



Writs of Assistance 9 

sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects;" so 
that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the king's 
dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant ; if 
this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, 
may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. 
In the next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A 
man is accountable to no jjerson for his doings. Every man 
may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror 
and desolation around him, until the trump of the arch- 
angel shall excite different emotions in his soul. In the 
third place, a joerson with this writ, in the daytime, may 
enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all to 
assist him. Fourthly, by this writ, not only deputies, etc., 
but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over 
us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a 
witness on us ; to be the servant of servants, the most des- 
picable of God's creation? Now, one of the most essential 
branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. 
A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as 
well guarded as a jjrince in his castle. This writ, if it 
should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privi- 
lege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when 
they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their 
menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and 
everything in their way: and whether they break through 
malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare 
suspicion without oath is sufficient. 

To show another absurdity in this writ, if it should be 
established, I insist ujDon it every person, by the 14th 
Charles II., has this power as well as the custom-house 
officers. The words are, "it shall be lawful for any person 
or persons authorized," etc. What a scene does this open ! 
Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness 
to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a 
writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense; 
one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society 
be involved in tumult and in blood. 



lo James Otis 

Again, these writs are not returned. Writs in their na- 
ture are temporary things; but these live forever; no one 
can be called to account. Thus reason and the constitu- 
tion are both against this writ. 

Let us see what authority there is for it. Not more 
than one instance can be found of it in all our law books; 
and that was in the zenith of arbitrary power, namely, in 
the reign of Charles II., when Star-Chamber powers were 
pushed to extremity by some ignorant clerk of the Ex- 
chequer. But had this writ been in any book whatever, it 
would have been illegal. All precedents are under the 
control of the princij^les of law. Lord Talbot says it is 
better to observe these than any jjrecedents, though in the 
House of Lords, the last resort of the subject. No acts 
of Parliament can establish such a writ; though it should 
be made in the very words of the petition. It would be 
void. An act against the constitution is void. (See Viner.) 
[Charles Viner was the author of A General Abridgement 
of Law and Equity, in 23 vols., published in England, 
1742-53.] But these prove no more than what I before 
observed, that special writs may be granted on oath and 
probable suspicion. The Act of 7 and 8 William III., 
that the officers of the Plantations shall have the same 
powers, etc., is confined to this sense, that an officer 
should show probable ground, should take his oath to it, 
should do this before a magistrate, and that such a magis- 
trate, if he thinks proper, should issue a special warrant 
to a constable to search the places. That of 6 Anne can 
prove no more. 



2. JOHN ADAMS, of Massachusetts.— ON THE BOS- 
TON MASSACRE 

(Delivered at Boston, November, 1770.) 

The "Boston Massacre" is a good illustration of the 
increased tension of feeling between the colonists and 
the representatives of the English government which was 
produced by ten years of friction and agitation. After 
many minor affrays, a picket guard from the two regi- 
ments which had been stationed at Boston since 1768, 
were provoked (on March 5, 1770) into firing upon a 
crowd, killing several persons and wounding others. The 
officer and soldiers concerned were indicted and tried for 
murder. John Adams and Josiah Quincy, braving public 
opinion, inidertook the defense of the accused. Quincy 
opened for the defense in a speech of much power and 
eloquence; Adams, in closing, confined himself to "a clear 
recapitulation of the common law in cases of homicide." 
The accused were all acquitted except two, who were con- 
victed of manslaughter and lightly punished. 

The interest felt in the trial was so great that the then 
difficult task of a stenographic report of it was attempted. 
The notes, however, proved so imperfect that Adams struck 
out the greater part of the report of his speech, and the 
published volume thus contains only the outline of what 
he said. The Marquis di Beccaria, mentioned in the begin- 
ning of the oration, was an Italian writer who published 
a celebrated treatise On Crimes and Punishments, of which 
an English translation appeared two years before this 

11 



12 John Adams 

trial. Adams's telling use of the passage quoted in his 
simple exordium pi-oduced, we are told, "an electrical ef- 
fect upon the immense and excited auditory." (Adams, 
JVorks, II, p. 238.) Wemms, Killroy, and Montgomery, 
mentioned in the extracts below, were among the soldiers in- 
dicted; Gray, Attucks, and Carr were numbered among their 
victims. The documents and sjjeeches may be most con- 
veniently found in Kidders' Histori/ of the Boston Massacre 
(Albany, 1870). 



[Joiiy Adams, in the old State House, at Boston, in November, 1770.] 

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HoNORS, AND YOU, GeNTLEMEN 
OF THE Jury: I am for the prisoners at the bar, 
and shall apologize for it only in the words of 
the Marquis Beccaria : "If I can but be the instrument of 
preserving one life, his blessings and tears of transport 
shall be a sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of 
all mankind." As the prisoners stand before you for their 
lives, it may be proper to recollect with what temper the 
law requires we should proceed to this trial. The form of 
proceeding at their arraignment has discovered that the 
spirit of the law upon such occasions is conformable to 
humanity, to common sense and feeling; that it is all 
benignity and candor. And the trial commences with the 
prayer of the court, expressed by the clerk, to the Supreme 
Judge of judges, empires, and worlds, "God send you a 
good deliverance." 

We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English 
judges who have been the brightest of mankind, [that] we 
are to look upon it as more beneficial that many guilty per- 
sons should escape unpunished than one innocent person 
should suffer. The reason is, because it is of more impor- 
tance to the community that innocence should be protected 
than it is that guilt should be punished ; for guilt and 
crimes are so frequent in the world that all of them can- 



Boston Massacre 13 

not be punished ; and many times they hajDpen in such a 
manner that it is not of much consequence to the public 
whether they are punished or not. But when innocence 
itself is brought to the bar and condemned^ especially to 
die, the subject will exclaim. It is immaterial to me whether 
I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security. And 
if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind 
of the subject, there would be an end to all security what- 
soever. ... I shall take it for granted, as a first 
principle, that the eiglit prisoners at the bar had better be 
all acquitted, though we should admit them all to be 
guilty, than that any one of them should, by your verdict, 
be found guilty, being innocent. 

I shall now consider the several divisions of law, under 
which the evidence will arrange itself. 

The action now before you is homicide ; that is, the kill- 
ing of one man by another. The law calls it homicide; 
but it is not criminal in all cases for one man to slay an- 
other. Had the prisoners been on the Plains of Abraham 
[at Quebec] and slain an hundred Frenchmen apiece, the 
English law would liave considered it as a commendable 
action, virtuous and praiseworthy; so that every instance of 
killing a man is not a crime in the eye of the law. There 
are many other instances which I cannot enumerate — an 
officer that executes a person under sentence of death, etc. 
So that, gentlemen, every instance of one man's killing an- 
other is not a crime, much less a crime to be punished with 
death. But to descend to some more particulars. 

The law divides homicide into three branches: the first 
is justifiable, the second excusable, and the third felonious. 
Felonious homicide is subdivided into two branches : the 
first is murder, which is killing with malice aforethought; 
the second is manslaughter, which is killing a man on a 
sudden provocation. Here, gentlemen, are four sorts of 
homicide; and you are to consider whether all the evidence 
amounts to the first, second, tliird, or fourth of these heads. 
The fact was the slaying five unhappy persons that night. 



14 John Adams 

You are to consider whether it was justifiable, excusable, 
or felonious; and if felonious^ whether it was murder or 
manslaughter. One of these four it must be. You need not 
divide your attention to any more particulars. 

The question is, are you satisfied the people made the 
attack in order to kill the soldiers.^ If you are satisfied 
that tlie people, whoever they were, made that assault with 
a design to kill or maim the soldiers, this was such an as- 
sault as will justify the soldiers killing in their own de- 
fense. Further, it seems to mc, we may make another 
question, whether you are satisfied that their real intention 
was to kill or maim, or not.'' If any reasonable man, in 
the situation of one of these soldiers, would have had rea- 
son to believe in the time of it, that the people came with 
an intention to kill him, whether a'ou have this satisfaction 
now or not in your own minds, they were justifiable, at 
least excusable, in firing. You and I may be suspicious 
that the people who made this assault on the soldiers, did it 
to put them to flight, on purpose that they they might go ex- 
ulting about the town afterwards in triumph ; but this will 
not do. You must place yourselves in the situation of 
Wemms and Kilroy — consider yourselves as knowing that 
the prejudices of the world about you were against you — 
that the j^cople about you thouglit you came to dragoon 
them into obedience to statutes, instructions, mandates, and 
edicts, which they thoroughly detested — that many of these 
people were thoughtless and inconsiderate, old and young, 
sailors and landsmen, negroes and mulattoes — that they, 
the soldiers, had no friends about them^ the rest were in 
opposition to them ; with all the bells ringing to call the 
town together to assist the people in King street, for they 
knew by that time that there was no fire ; the jieople shout- 
ing, huzzaing, and making the "mob- whistle," as they call 
it, which, when a boy makes it in the street, is no formi- 
dable thing, but when made by a multitude, is a most hide- 
ous shriek, almost as terrible as an Indian yell; the people 
crying, "Kill them! kill them! Knock them over!" — heav- 



Boston Massacre 15 

ing snowballs, oyster-shells, clubs, white birch sticks three 
inches and a half diameter; — consider yourselves in this 
situation, and then judge whether a reasonable man in the 
soldiers' situation would not have concluded they were go- 
ing to kill him. I believe, if I was to reverse the scene, I 
should bring it home to our own bosoms. Suppose Colonel 
Marshall, when he came out of his own door, and saw these 
grenadiers coming down, with swords, etc., had thought it 
proper to have appointed a military watch ; suppose he had 
assembled Gray and Attucks that were killed, or any other 
person in town, and planted them in that station as a 
military watch, and there had come from Murray's bar- 
racks thirty or forty soldiers, with no other arms than 
snowballs, cakes of ice, oyster-shells, cinders, and clubs, 
and attacked this military watch in this manner, what do 
you suppose would have been the feelings and reasonings 
of any of our householders? I confess I believe they would 
not have borne one half of what tlie witnesses have sworn 
the soldiers bore, till tliey had shot down as many as were 
necessary to intimidate and disperse the rest. Because the 
law does not oblige us to bear insults to the danger of our 
lives, to stand still with such a number of people around us, 
throwing such things at us, and threatening our lives, until 
we are disabled to defend ourselves. 

In the case before you, I suppose you will be 
satisfied when you come to examine the witnesses and com- 
pare it with the rules of the common law, abstracted from 
all mutiny acts and articles of war, that these soldiers were 
in such a situation that they could not help themselves. 
People were coming from Royal Exchange lane, and other 
parts of the town, with clubs and cord-wood sticks ; the 
soldiers were planted by the wall of the Custom House; 
they could not retreat; they were surrounded on all sides, 
for there were people behind them as well as before them; 
there were a number of people in Royal Exchange lane; the 
soldiers were so near to the Custom House that they could 
not retreat, unless they had gone into the brick wall of it. 



1 6 John Adams 

I shall show you presently that all the party concerned in 
this unlawful design were guilty of what any one of them 
did; if anybody threw a snowball^ it was the act of the 
whole party; if any struck with a club or threw a club, 
and the club had killed anybody, the whole party would 
have been guilty of murder in law. 

I will not at present look for any more authori- 
ties in the point of self-defense; you will be able to judge 
from these how far the law goes in justifying or excusing 
any person in defense of himself, or taking away the life 
of another who threatens him in life or limb. The next 
point is this: that in case of an unlawful assembly, all and 
every one of the assembly is guilty of all and every unlaw- 
ful act committed by any one of that assembly in prosecu- 
tion of the unlawful design they set out upon. 

Rules of law should be universally known, whatever ef- 
fect they may have on politics; they are rules of common 
law, the law of the land; and it is certainly true, that 
wherever there is an unlawful assembly, let it consist of 
many persons or a few, every man in it is guilt^'' of every 
unlawful act committed by any one of the whole party, be 
they more or be they less, in pursuance of their unlawful 
design. This is the policy of the law; to discourage and 
prevent riots, insurrections, turbulence, and tumults. 

In the continual vicissitudes of human things, amidst the 
shocks of fortune and the whirls of passion that take place 
at certain critical seasons, even in the mildest government, 
the people are liable to run into riots and tumults. There 
are Church-quakes and State-(|uakes in the moral and po- 
litical world, as well as earthquakes, storms, and tempests 
in the physical. Thus much, however, must be said in fa- 
vor of the people and of human nature, that it is a gen- 
eral, if not universal truth, that the aptitude of the people 
to mutinies, seditions, tiimults, and insurrections is in di- 
rect proportion to the despotism of the government. In 
governments completely despotic, i.e. where the will of 
one man is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent. 



Boston Massacre 17 

Jn aristocracies next; in mixed monarchies, less than either 
of the former; in complete republics the least of all. And 
under the same form of government, as in a limited mon- 
archy for example, the virtue and wisdom of the adminis- 
trations may generally be measured by the peace and order 
that are seen among the people. However this may be, 
such is the imperfection of all things in this world that no 
form of government, and perhaps no virtue or wisdom in 
the administration, can at all times avoid riots and disor- 
ders among the people. 

Now, it is from this difficulty that the policy of the lav/ 
has framed such strong discouragements to secure the peo- 
ple against tumidts ; because, when they once begin, there 
is danger of their running to such excesses as will over- 
turn the whole system of government. 

Now if the party at Dock Square came with an intention 
only to beat the soldiers and began the affray with them, 
and any of them had been accidentally killed, it would 
have been murder, because it was an unlawful design they 
came upon. If but one does it, they are all considered in 
the eye of the law to be guilty; if any one gives the mortal 
stroke, they are all principal here, therefore there is a re- 
versal of the scene. If you are satisfied that these sol- 
diers were there on a lawful design, and it should be proved 
any of them shot without provocation, and killed anybody, 
he only is answerable for it. . . . 

Thus far I have proceeded, and I believe it will not be 
hereafter disputed by anybody, that this law ought to be 
known to every one who has any disposition to be concerned 
in an unlawful assembly: whatever mischief happens in 
the prosecution of the design they set out upon, all are 
answerable for it. It is necessary we should consider the 
definitions of some other crimes as well as murder; some- 
times one crime gives occasion to another. An assault is 
sometimes the occasion of manslaughter, sometimes of ex- 
cusable homicide. It is necessary to consider what is a 
riot. ... I shall give you the definition of it. "Where- 



i8 John Adams 

soever more than three persons use force or violence, for 
the accomiDlishment of any design whatever, all concerned 
are rioters." 

Were there not more than three persons in Dock Square? 
Did they not agree to go to King street, and attack the 
main guard? Where, then, is the reason for hesitation at 
calling it a riot? If we cannot speak the law as it is, where 
is our liberty? And this is law, that wherever more than 
three persons are gathered together to accomplish anything 
with force, it is a riot. 

If we strip ourselves free from all military laws. Mutiny 
Acts, Articles of War, and soldiers' oaths, and consider these 
prisoners as neighbors ; if any of their neighbors were at- 
tacked in King Street they had a riglit to collect together 
to suppress this riot and combination. 

Now, suppose you should have a jealousy in your minds 
that the people who made this attack upon the sentry had 
nothing in their intention more than to take him off his post, 
and that was threatened by some. Suppose they intended to 
go a little further, and tar and feather him, or to "ride" 
him (as the phrase is in Hudibras*), he would have had a 
good riglit to have stood upon his defense — the defense of 
his liberty; and if he could not preserve that without the 
hazard to his own life, he would be warranted in depriving 
those of life who were endeavoring to deprive him of his. 
That is a point I would not give up for my right hand — 
nay, for my life. 

Well, I say, if the people did this, or if this was only 
their intention, surely the officers and soldiers had a right to 
go to his relief; and therefore they set out upon a lawful 
errand. They were, therefore, a lawful assembly, if we 
only consider them as private subjects and fellow-citizens, 
without regard to Mutiny Acts, Articles of War, or soldiers' 
oaths. A private person, or any number of private persons, 
have a right to go to the assistance of their fellow-subject 

*The satirical poem "Hudibras," by Samuel Butler, was published 166'i-74. 



Boston Massacre 19 

in distress or danger of his life^ when assaulted and in 
danger from a few or a multitude. 

[On the next day Mr. Adams continued.] 

I yesterday afternoon produced from the best authorities 
those rules of law which must govern all cases of homicide, 
particularly that which is now before you. It now remains 
to consider the evidence, and see whether anything has 
occurred that may be compared to the rules read to you ; 
and I will not trouble myself nor you with labored en- 
deavors to be methodical. I shall endeavor to make some 
few observations on the testimonies of the witnesses, such 
as will place the facts in a true point of light, with as 
much brevity as possible ; but I suppose it would take me 
four hours to read to you (if I did nothing else but read) 
the minutes of evidence tliat I have taken in this trial. 

We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, 
to avoid calling this sort of people a mob. Some call them 
shavers, some call them geniuses. The plain English is, 
gentlemen, most j^robably, a motley rabble of saucy boys, 
negroes and mulattoes, Irish Teagues, and outlandish 
jacktars. And why we should scruple to call such a set of 
people a mob I cannot conceive, unless the name is too re- 
spectable for them. The sun is not about to stand still or 
go out, nor the rivers to dry up, because there was a mob 
in Boston, on the 5th of jNIarch, that attacked a party of 
soldiers. Such things are not new in the world, nor in 
the Britisli dominions, though they are comparatively rari- 
ties and novelties in this town. Carr, a native of Ireland, 
had often been concerned in such attacks ; and indeed, from 
the nature of things, soldiers quartered in a populous town 
will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one. 
They are wretched conservators of the peace. 

The next witness that knows anything was James Bailey. 

He saw some around the sentry, heaving pieces of 

ice large and hard enough to hurt any man — as big as your 



20 John Adams 

fist. One question is_, whether the sentinel was attacked 
or not. If you want evidence of an attack upon him there 
is enough of it. Here is a witness, an inhabitant of the 
town — surely no friend to the soldiers, for he was engaged 
against them at the rope-walk. He says he saw twenty or 
thirty aroimd the sentry, pelting with cakes of ice as big as 
one's fist. Certainly, cakes of ice of this size may kill a 
man, if they happen to hit some part of the head. So that 
here was an attack upon the sentinel, the , consequence of 
which he had reason to dread, and it was prudent in him to 
call for" the main guard. He retreated as far as he could. 
He attempted to get into the Custom House, but could not. 
Then he called to the guard, and he had a good right to 
call for their assistance. "He did not know, he told the 
witness, what was the matter, but he was afraid there would 
be mischief by and by;" and well he might, with so many 
shavers and geniuses around him, capable of throwing such 
dangerous things. Bailev swears Montgomery fired the 
first gun, and that he stood at the right, "the next man to 
me; I stood behind him," etc. This witness certainly is 
not prejudiced in favor of the soldiers. He swears he 
saw a man come up to Montgomery with a club and knock 
him down before he fired, and that he not only fell him- 
self but his gun flew out of his hand, and as soon as he 
rose he took it up and fired. If he was knocked down on 
his station, had he not reason to think his life in danger? 
Or did it not raise his passions and put him off his guard, 
so that it cannot be any more than manslaughter.^ 

When the multitude was shouting and huzzaing and 
threatening life, the bells all ringing, the mob whistling, 
screaming, and rending like an Indian yell, the people 
from all quarters throwing every species of rubbish they 
could pick up in the streets, and some who were quite on 
the other side of the street throwing clubs at the whole 
party, Montgomery in particular smote with a club and 
knocked down, and as soon as he could rise and take up 
his firelock another club from afar struck his breast or 



Boston Massacre 21 

shoulder, — what could he do? Do you expect he should be- 
have like a stoic philosopher, lost in apathy? Patient as 
Epictetus* while his master was breaking his legs with 
a cudgel? It is impossible you should find him guilty 
of murder. You must suppose him divested of all 
human passions, if you don't think him^ at the least, pro- 
voked, thrown off his guard, and into the furor hrevis by 
such treatment as this. 

Bailey "saw the mulatto, seven or eight minutes before 
the firing, at the head of twenty or thirty sailors in Corn- 
hill, and he had a large cord- wood stick." So that this 
Attucks, by this testimony of Bailey, compared with that 
of Andrew and some others, apjiears to have undertaken to 
be the hero of the night, and to lead this army with ban- 
ners. To form them in the first place in Dock Square, and 
march them up to King street with their clubs. They passed 
through the main street up to the main guard in order to 
make the attack. If this was not an unlawful assembly, 
there never was one in the world. Attucks, with his myr- 
midons, comes around Jackson's corner and down to the 
party by the sentry-box. When the soldiers pushed the 
people off, this man. with liis party, cried, "Do not be 
afraid of them; they dare not fire; kill them! kill them! 
knock them over !"' And he tried to knock their brains out. 
It is plain the soldiers did not leave their station, but cried 
to the people, "Stand off!" Now, to have this reinforce- 
ment coming down, under the command of a stout mulatto 
fellow, whose very looks was enough to terrify any person, 
what had not the soldiers then to fear? He had hardiness 
enough to fall in upon them, and with one hand took hold 
of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down. 
This was the behavior of Attucks, to whose mad behavior, 
in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night is 
chiefly to be ascribed. And it is in this manner this town 
lias been often treated. A Carr from Ireland, and an At- 

*A famous Greek philosopher, whose early life was spent in slavery. 



22 John Adams 

tucks from Framingliam, haj^pening to be here, shall sally 
out upon their thoughtless enterprises at the head of such 
a rabble of negroes, etc., as they can collect together, and 
then there are not wanting persons to ascribe all their do- 
ings to the good people of the town ! 

[Mr. Adams continued with a minute consideration of the 
evidence produced on the side of the crown and in behalf 
of the prisoners, and endeavored to show that the assault 
upon the soldiers was sufficiently provoking to justify the 
prisoners, or at least to reduce to manslaughter the crime 
even of the two who were proved to have killed members of 
the mob. He then concluded as follows:] 

I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it 
to you. Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be 
our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, 
they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence; nor is 
the law less stable than the fact. If an assault was made 
to endanger their lives, the law is clear: they had a right to 
kill in their own defense. If it was not so severe as to en- 
danger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck 
and abused by blows of any sort — by snowballs, oyster- 
shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind — this was a 
provocation for which the law reduces the offense of kill- 
ing down to manslaughter, in consideration of those pas- 
sions in our nature which cannot be eradicated. To your 
candor and justice I submit the prisoners and their cause. 

The law in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations 
of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a 
steady, undeviating course ; it will not bend to the uncer- 
tain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men. To 
use the words of a great and worthy man, a patriot and 
a hero, an enlightened friend of mankind, and a martyr 
to liberty — I mean Algernon Sidney,* who, from his earliest 
infancy, sought a tranquil retirement under the shadow of 
the tree of liberty, with his tongue, his pen, and his sword. 

♦Author of "Discourses Concerning Government;" executed on a false charge 
of treason under Charles II., in 1683. 



Boston Massacre 23 

"The law (says he) no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of 
desire and fear^ lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu; 
written reason ; retaining some measure of the divine per- 
fection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak 
frail man, but without any regard to persons commands 
that which is good, and punishes evil in all, whether rich 
or poor, high or low. 'Tis deaf, inexorable, inflexible." 
On the one hand, it is inexorable to the cries and lamenta- 
tions of the prisoners; on the other, it is dead — deaf as an 
adder — to the clamors of the populace. 



3. PATRICK HENRY, of Virginia.— LIBERTY OR 
DEATH 

(In the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775.) 

The reaistanee of the colonies to the attempts of Eng- 
land to tax them culminated in the "Boston Tea-party" of 
December 16", 1773; this led to the Acts closing the port of 
Boston and revoking the Massachusetts charter; and these 
to the union of the colonies in the First Continental Con- 
gress (1774'). In jjreparation for armed conflict, Patrick 
Henry introduced the following motion in the Virginia 
Convention (March 23, 1775): 

"Resolved, . . . That this colony be immediately 

put into a state of defense^ and that be a 

committee to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, and 
disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for 
that purpose." 

The speech in which ^Ir. Henry supported the resolu- 
tion is famous in American eloquence. "It was a proud 
[day] to a Virginian feeling and acting with his country," 
says Edmund Randolph, an eye-witness. "Demosthenes in- 
vigorated the timid, and Cicero^ charmed the backward." 
The multitude, many of whom had traveled to the conven- 

Patrick Henry. Born, MM: first elected to the House of Bursesses, V165\ dele- 
gate to the Continental Congress, 177-1 and 177.>; Governor of Virginia, 1775-1780, 
and 1784; member of the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution 
1788; retired from public life, 1794; died, 1799. 

♦Virginians called Patrick Henry the Demosthenes, and Richard Henry Lee 
the Cicero of the age. (John Adams, Works, H, p. .157.) 



24. 



4 



Liberty or Death 25 

tion from a distance, could not suppress their emotion. 
Henry was his pure self. Those who had toiled in the ar- 
tifices of scholastic rhetoric were involuntarily driven into 
an inquiry within themselves whether rules and forms and 
niceties of elocution would not have choked his native fire. 
It blazed so as to warm the coldest heart. ... It was 
Patrick Henry, born in obscurity, poor, and without the 
advantages of literature, rousing the genius of his country, 
and binding a band of patriots together to hurl defiance 
at the tyranny of so formidable a nation as Great Britain. 
When he sat down, his sounds vibrated so loudly, 
if not in the ears at least in the memory of his audience, 
that no other member, not even his friend [R. H. Lee] 
who was to second him, was yet adventurous enough to in- 
terfere with that voice which had so recently subdued and 
captivated. After a few minutes, Richard Henry Lee 
fanned and refreshed with a gale of pleasure; but the ves- 
sel of the revolution was still under the impulse of the 
tempest which Henry had created. Artificial oratory fell 
in copious streams from the mouth of Lee, and rules of 
persuasion accomplished everything which rules could ef- 
fect. If elegance had been personified, Lee would have 
been chosen. But Henry had trampled upon rules and yet 
triumphed, at this time perhaps beyond his own expectation. 
Jefferson was not silent. He argued closely, profoundly, 
and warmly on the same side. The post in this revolu- 
tionary debate belonging to him was that at which the 
theories of republicanism were deposited. Washington was 
prominent, though silent. His looks bespoke a mind ab- 
sorbed in meditation on his country's fate; but a positive 
concert between him and Henry could not more effectually 
have exhibited him to view, than when Henry with indig- 
nation ridiculed the idea of peace 'when there was no 
peace,' and enlarged on the duty of preparing for war." 



26 Patrick Henry 

Henry's speech was reconstructed in the form below by 
one of his biographers, from the recollections mainly of 
John Tyler and St. George Tucker. (W. W. Henry, Pat- 
rick Henry, I, ch. xi.) 

[Patrick Hknrv, in the Virginia Convention, at Richmond, March i^, 177.'). 1 

MR. President: No man thinks more highly than 
I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the 
i' very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed 
the house. But different men often see the same subject 
in different lights ; and, therefore, I hope it will not be 
thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining 
as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I 
shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. 
This is no time for ceremony. The question before the 
house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own 
part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of free- 
dom or slavery ; and in proportion to the magnitude of the 
subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only 
in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil 
the great responsibility which we hold to God and our 
country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time 
through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself 
as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of 
disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven which I revere 
above all earthly kings. 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the il- 
lusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a 
painful truth, and listen to tlie song of that siren till she 
transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men 
engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty.^ Are: 
we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes 
see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so 
nearly concern their temporal salvation.'' For my part, 
whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know 
the whole truth ; to know the worst and to provide for it. 



Liberty or Death 27 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and 
that is the lamp of experience. T know of no way of judg- 
ing of the future but by the past. And judging by the 
past I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of 
the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those 
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace 
themselves and the house .^ Is it that insidious smile with 
which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, 
sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not your- 
selves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this 
gracious reception of our petition comports with those war- 
like preparations which cover our waters and darken our 
land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love 
and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling 
to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back 
our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the 
implements of -war and subjugation; the last arguments to 
which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this 
martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submis- 
sion? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for 
it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the 
world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? 
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can 
be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet 
upon us those chains which the British ministry have been 
so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? 
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that 
for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon 
the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in 
every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in 
vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? 
What terms shall we find which have not been already ex- 
hausted ? 

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. 
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert 
the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we 
have remonstrated ; we have supplicated ; we have prostrated 



28 Patrick Henry 

ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interpo- 
sition to arrest the tyrannical hands of tlie ministry and Par- 
liament. Our petitions have been slighted ; our remon- 
strances have produced additional violence and insult; our 
supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been 
s^jurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In 
vain, after these things, may we indulge in the fond hope 
of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room 
for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve 
inviolate .those inestimable privileges for which we have 
been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon 
the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, 
and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon 
until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — 
we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal 
to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with 
so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be strong- 
er.? Will it be the next week, or the next year.? Will it 
be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard 
shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength 
by irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means 
of effectual resistance by lying sujDinely on our backs and 
hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies 
shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak 
if we make a proper use of those means which the God of 
nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of peo- 
ple, armed in tlie holy cause of liberty, and in such a country 
as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which 
our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not 
figlit our battles alone. There is a just God who presides 
over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends 
to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the 
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Be- 
sides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to de- 
sire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is 
no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are 



Liberty or Death 29 

forged ! Their clinking may be heard on the plains of 
Boston! The war is inevitable^ and let it come! I re- 
peat itj sir^ let it come. 

It is in vain^ sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may 
cry. Peace, jieace ! — but there is no peace. The war is ac- 
tually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our 
brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? 
What is it that gentlemen wish.'^ What would they have? 
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it. Almighty God ! I 
know not what course others may take; but as for me, give 
me liberty, or give me death! 



4. JOHN DICKINSOX, of Pennsylvania.— DECLA- 
RATION OF THE COLONIES ON 
TAKING UP ARMS 

(Read to the Continental Army, before Boston, July 18, 1775.) 

The declaration of the colonies upon taking up arms 
was composed by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania^ and 
was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 
6, 1775. It was intended "to be published by General 
Washington ujjon his arrival at the camp before Boston," 
and was so proclaimed July 18th. When it was read to Gen- 
eral Putnam's regiment, we are told that the men "shouted 
in three huzzas a loud Amen!"; and doubtless similar dem- 
onstrations greeted its reading elsewhere. It is, of course, 
an ex parte statement of the American grievances, and 
naturally does less than justice to Great Britain's side of the 
controversy. Nevertheless this declaration is one of the 
notable documents of the Revolution, and is worthy of care- 
ful study as showing tlie temper in Avhich our forefathers be- 
gan their great conflict. 

.lefterson, writing forty-six years afterwards, claimed the 
authorship of the last four paragraphs of the address; but 
careful examination of the original manuscript, and a con- 
sideration of all the circumstances, here led to the rejection 
of this claim as formed in the confusion of a faulty memory. 
(See Stille's Life and Times of John Diekinson, pp. 353- 
364.) 

John Dickinson. Born in 1732; studied law in Eng'land; elected to the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly, 1764; delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, 1765, and to the 
Continental Congresses, 177-t and 1775; author of many patriotic pamphlets, 
especially "The Farmer's Letters" (1767); opposed the declaration of independ- 
ence, but served as Brigadier-General in the war, and in Congress; member of 
the Federal Convention from Delaware, 1787; died, 1808. 

30 



Declaration of Colonies 31 

[John Dickinson, Declaration of the Colonies on taking up Arms, July, 1775.] 

IF IT WAS possible for men who exercise their reason to 
believe that the Divine Author of our existence intended 
a part of the liuman race to hold an absolute property 
in and unbounded power over others, marked out by his 
infinite goodness and wisdom as the objects of a legal 
domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and 
oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least 
require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evi- 
dence that this dreadful authority has been granted to that 
body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles 
of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must con- 
vince all those who reflect upon the subject that govern- 
ment was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, 
and ought to be administered for the attainment of that 
end. The legislature of Great Britain, . . . stimu- 
lated by an inordinate passion for a power not only 
unjustifiable, but which they know to be peculiarly repro- 
bated by the very constitution of that kingdom, 
have attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose 
of enslaving these colonies by violence, and have thereby 
rendered it necessary for us to close with their last appeal 
from reason to arms. Yet, however blinded that assembly 
may be by their intemperate rage for unlimited domination, 
so to slight justice and the opinion of mankind, we esteem 
ourselves bound by obligations of respect to the rest of the 
world to make known the justice of our cause. 

Our forefathers, inhabitants of the island of Great 
Britain, left their native land to seek on these shores a resi- 
dence for civil and religious freedom. At the expense of 
their blood; at the hazard of their fortunes; without the 
least charge to the country from which they removed; by 
unceasing labor and an unconquerable spirit, they effected 
settlements in the distant and inhospitable wilds of 
America, then filled with numerous and warlike nations 
of barbarians. Societies or governments, vested with per- 
fect legislatures, were formed under charters from the 



32 John Dickinson 

Crown, and an harmonious intercourse was established be- 
tween the colonies and the kingdom from which they de- 
rived their origin. The mutual benefits of this union be- 
came in a short time so extraordinary as to excite astonish- 
ment. It is universally confessed that the amazing in- 
crease of the wealth, strength, and navigation of the realm 
arose from this source ; and tlie minister who so wisely and 
successfully directed the measures of Great Britain in the 
late war, publicly declared that these colonies enabled her 
to triumph over her enemies. Towards the conclusion of 
that war, it pleased our sovereign to make a change in his 
counsels. From that fatal moment the affairs of the British 
Empire began to fall into confusion, and gradually sliding 
from the summit of glorious prosperity to which they had 
been advanced by the virtues and abilities of one man [Wil- 
liam Pitt, Earl of Chatham], are at length distracted by 
the convulsions that now shake its deepest foundations. 
The new ministry, finding the brave foes of Britain, though 
frequently defeated, yet still contending, took up the un- 
fortunate idea of granting them a hasty peace, and of then 
subduing her faithful friends. 

These devoted colonies were judged to be in such a state 
as to present victories without bloodshed, and all the easy 
emoluments of statutable plunder. The uninterrupted 
tenor of their peaceable and respectful behavior from the 
beginning of colonization; their dutiful, zealous and useful 
services during the war, though so recently and amply ac- 
knowledged in the most honorable manner by his majesty, 
by the late king [George II.], and by Parliament, could not 
save them from the meditated innovations. Parliament was 
influenced to adopt the pernicious project, and assuming a 
new power over them have, in the course of eleven years, 
given such decisive specimens of the spirit and consequences 
attending this power, as to leave no doubt concerning the 
cft'ects of acquiescence under it. They have undertaken to 
give and grant our money without our consent, though we 
have ever exercised an exclusive right to dispose of our 



Declaration of Colonies 33 

own property; statutes have been passed for extending the 
jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, and vice-admiralty, 
beyond their ancient limits ; for depriving us of the accus- 
tomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury, in cases 
affecting both life and property; for suspending the legis- 
lature of one of the colonies; for interdicting all commerce 
to the capital of another, and for altering, fundamentally, 
the form of government established by charter and secured 
by acts of its own legislature, solemnly confirmed by the 
Crown ; for exempting the murderers of colonists from 
legal trial, and in effect, from punishment; for erecting in 
a neighboring province [Canada], acquired by the joint 
arms of Great Britain and America, a despotism dangerous 
to our very existence; and for quartering soldiers upon the 
colonists in time of profound peace. It has also been re- 
solved in Parliament that colonists charged with commit- 
ting certain offenses shall be transported to England to be 
tried. 

But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? 
By one statute it is declared that Parliament can "of right 
make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever." What is to 
defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power? Not 
a single man of those who assume it is chosen by us, or is 
subj ect to our control or influence ; but on the contrary they 
are all of them exempt from the operation of such laws, 
and an American revenue, if not diverted from the osten- 
sible purposes for which it is raised, would actually lighten 
their own burdens in proportion as they increase ours. We 
saw the misery to which such despotism would reduce us. 
We for ten years incessantly and ineffectually besieged 
the throne as supplicants ; we reasoned, we remonstrated 
with Parliament in the most mild and decent language. 

Administration, sensible that we should regard these op- 
pressive measures as freemen ought to do, sent over fleets 
and armies to enforce them. The indignation of the Ameri- 
cans was roused, it is true, but it was the indignation of a 
virtuous, loyal, and affectionate people. A Congress of 



34 John Dickinson 

delegates from the united colonies was assembled at Phila- 
delphia on the fifth day of last September. We resolved 
again to ofter an humble and dutiful petition to the king, 
and also addressed our fellow-subjects of Great Britain. 
We have pursued every temperate, every respectful meas- 
ure; we have even proceeded to break off our commercial 
intercourse with our fellow-subjects, as the last peaceable 
admonition, that our attachment to no nation upon earth 
should supplant our attachment to liberty. This, we flat- 
tered ourselves, was the ultimate step of the controversy, 
but subsequent events have shown how vain was this hope 
of finding moderation in our enemies. 

Several threatening expressions against the colonies were 
inserted in his majesty's speech; our petition, though we 
were told it was a decent one, and that his majesty had 
been pleased to receive it graciously, and to promise laying 
it before his Parliament, was huddled into both houses 
among a bundle of American papers, and there neglected. 
The Lords and Commons in their address, in the month 
of February, said that "a rebellion at that time actually 
existed within the province of ]\Iassachusetts Bay, and that 
those concerned in it had been countenanced and encouraged 
by imlawful combinations and engagements, entered into 
b}' his majesty's subjects in several of the other colonies; 
and, therefore, they besought his majesty that he would 
take the most effectual measures to enforce due obedience 
to the laws and authority of the supreme legislature." 
Soon after, the commercial intercourse of whole colonies 
with foreign countries and with each other was cut off by 
an act of Parliament; by another, several of them were en- 
tirely prohibited from the fisheries in the seas near their 
coasts, on which they always depended for their subsist- 
ence, and large reinforcements of ships and troops were 
immediately sent over to General Gage. 

Fruitless were all the entreaties, arguments, and elo- 
quence of an illustrious band of the most distinguished 
peers and commoners, who nobly and strenuously asserted 



Declaration of Colonies 35 

the justice of our cause, to stay or even to mitigate the 
heedless fury with which these accumulated and unex- 
ampled outrages were hurried on. Equally fruitless was 
the interference of the city of London^ of Bristol, and 
many other respectable towns, in our favor. Parliament 
adopted an insidious manoeuvre, calculated to divide us, to 
establish a perpetual auction of taxations, where colony 
should bid against colony, all of them uninformed what 
ransom would redeem their lives ; and thus to extort from 
us, at the point of the bayonet, the unknown sums that 
should be sufficient to gratify — if possible to gratify — 
ministerial rapacity; with the miserable indulgence left to 
us of raising, in our own mode, the prescribed tribute. 
What terms more rigid and humiliating could have been 
dictated by remorseless victors to conquered enemies.'' In 
our circumstances to accept them would be to deserve them. 
Soon after the intelligence of these proceedings arrived 
on this continent, General Gage, who in the course of the 
last year had taken possession of the town of Boston, in 
the province of Massachusetts Bay, and still occupied it as 
a garrison, on the nineteenth day of April sent out from 
that place a large detachment of his army, who made an 
unprovoked assault on the inhabitants of the said province 
at the town of Lexington, as appears by the affidavits of 
a great number of persons, some of whom were officers and 
soldiers of that detachment; murdered eight of the inhabi- 
tants and wounded many others. From thence the troops 
proceeded, in warlike array, to the town of Concord, where 
they set upon another party of the inhabitants of the same 
province, killing several and wounding more, until com- 
pelled to retreat by the country people suddenly assembled 
to repel this cruel aggression. Hostilities, thus commenced 
by the British troops, have been since prosecuted by them, 
without regard to faith or reputation. The inhabitants 
of Boston being confined within that town by the general 
their governor, and having, in order to procure their dis- 
mission entered into a treaty with him, it was stipulated 



36 John Dickinson 

tli<at the said inhabitants having deposited their arms with 
their own magistrates should have liberty to depart, taking 
witli them their other effects. They accordingly delivered 
up their arms : but in open violation of honor, in defiance 
of the obligation of treaties, which even savage nations 
esteem sacred, the governor ordered the arms, deposited as 
aforesaid that they might be preserved for their owners, 
to be seized by a body of soldiers ; detained the greatest part 
of the inhabitants in the town ; and compelled the few who 
were permitted to retire to leave their most valuable effects 
behind. 

By this perfidy wives are separated from their husbands, 
children from their parents, the aged and the sick from 
their relations and friends, who wish to attend and com- 
fort them; and those who have been used to live in plenty, 
and even elegance, are reduced to deplorable distress. 

The general, further emulating his ministerial masters, 
bj- a proclamation bearing date on the twelfth day of June, 
after venting the grossest falsehoods and calumnies against 
the good people of these colonies, proceeds to "declare them 
all, either by name or description, to be rebels and traitors, 
to supersede the course of common law, and instead thereof 
to publish and order the use and exercise of the law mar- 
tial." His troops have butchered our countrymen, have 
wantonly burnt Charlestown, besides a considerable number 
of houses in other places; our ships and vessels are seized; 
the necessary supplies of provisions are intercepted; and 
he is exerting his utmost power to spread destruction and 
devastation around him. 

We have received certain intelligence that General 
Carleton, the Governor of Canada, is instigating the people 
of that province and the Indians to fall upon us; and we 
have but too much reason to apprehend that schemes have 
been formed to excite domestic enemies against us. In 
brief, a part of these colonies now feel, and all of them 
are sure of feeling, as far as the vengeance of administra- 
tion can inflict them, the complicated calamities of fire. 



Declaration of Colonies 37 

sword, and famine. We are reduced to the alternative of 
choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of ir- 
ritated ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our 
choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and 

FIND nothing so DREADFUI> AS VOLUNTARY SLAVERY ! Hon- 

or, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that 
freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, 
and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive 
from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resign- 
ing succeeding generations to that wretchedness which in- 
evitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bond- 
age upon them. 

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal 
resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is 
undoubtedly attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as 
signal instances of Divine favor towards us, that His provi- 
dence would not permit us to be called into this severe con- 
troversy until we were grown up to our present strength, 
had been previously exercised in warlike operations, and 
possessed the means of defending ourselves. With hearts 
fortified by these animating reflections, we most solemnly, 
before God and the world, Declare, fJuit, eaeriing the ut- 
most energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator 
has graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been 
compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance 
of every hazard, with unobating firmness and perseverance, 
employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one 
mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves. 

Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our 
friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we 
assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which 
has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which 
we sincerely wish to see restored. Necessity has not yet driv- 
en us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite 
any other nation to war against them. We have not raised 
armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great 
Britain, and establishing independent States. We fight 



38 John Dickinson 

not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the 
remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked 
enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of of- 
fense. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and 
yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death. 

In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that 
is our birth-right and which we ever enjoyed till the late 
violation of it, for the protection of our property acquired 
solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and our- 
selves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up 
arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease 
on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being 
renewed shall be removed, and not before. 

With an humble confidence in the mercies of the Supreme 
and impartial Judge and Ruler of the universe, we most 
devoutly implore His divine goodness to protect us happily 
through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to 
reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve 
the empire from the calamities of civil war. 



5. JOHN WITHERSPOON, of New Jersey.— THE 
NECESSITY OF CONFEDERATION 

(In Congress, at Philadelphia, July 30, 1776.) 

On June 1 , 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia intro- 
duced the following resolutions in the Continental Con- 
gress : 

"Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent States ; that they are 
absolved from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that 
all political connection between them and the state of 
Great Britain is, and of right ought to be, totally dis- 
solved. 

"That a plan of Confederation be prepared and trans- 
mitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and 
approbation." 

The first of these resolutions resulted (July 4, 1776) 
in the Declaration of Independence ; the second led to the 
formulation and ultimate adoption of the Articles of Con- 
federation. 

The "plan of confederation" here ordered to be prepared 
was first reported July 12, 1776. It was adopted by Con- 
gress and recommended to the States for "immediate and 
dispassionate consideration" on November 15, 1777; but 

John Witherspoon, D.D. Born near Edinburgh, Scotland, 1722; graduated 
from Edinburgh University, 1739; became president of New Jersey College, 1768; 
member of the New Jersey Constitutional Convention, 1776; member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, 1776-82; died, 1795. 

39 



40 John Witherspoon 

it was not finally acceded to by Maryland, the last of the 
thirteen States^ until 1781^ on March 1st of which year 
it formally went into effect. The government created was 
one of strictly limited powers, each State retaining "its 
sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, 
jurisdiction, and right which is not by this Confederation 
expressly delegated to the United States in Congress as- 
sembled." There was no provision for a separate execu- 
tive, so the administration was left to Congress, its com- 
mittees, and the officers appointed by it. The Congress 
was a legislature of a single house, consisting of delegates 
appointed by and responsible to the State Legislatures. 
Each State delegation possessed one vote. On important 
matters the votes of nine States were necessary. To amend 
the Articles themselves confirmation by the legislature 
of every State was required. A common treasury was es- 
tablished out of which all charges of war and other ex- 
penses were to be defrayed; but to fill the treasury Con- 
gress could only make requisitions on the States, which 
alone assessed and collected taxes. On the other hand. 
Congress was given the sole and exclusive right of -determin- 
ing on war and peace, of sending and receiving ambassa- 
dors, and of entering into treaties and alliances with for- 
eign powers. 

In the discussions which preceded the final adoption of 
the Articles, serious differences of opinion were revealed 
over the question of representation and taxation (which in- 
volved the question of the status of slaves), over the con- 
trol of the Indians, and esjDCcially over the ownership of 
the Western lands. The long delay in ratifying the Ar- 
ticles was due to Maryland's resolute demand that those 
States which claimed territory extending to the Mississippi 
or the Pacific (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and New York) should first surrender to the 



Necessity of Confederation 41 

United States these Western lands. In Congress itself 
opposition on this question had arisen. In the midst of the 
first discussions of the Articles (July 25, 1776) James 
Wilson of Pennsylvania had characterized these claims as 
"extravagant" and "made upon mistakes"; Pennsylvania, 
he continued, "has no right to interfere in these claims, but 
she has a right to say that she will not confederate unless 
these claims are cut off." (Notes of the debates, in John 
Adams, Works, II, p. 493.) 

It was the imminent danger, revealed by these discus- 
sions, of the failure of all plans for permanent union, 
which called forth the following speech (July 30, 1776) 
from Dr. John Witherspoon, President of the New Jersey 
College (now Princeton University) and a delegate in Con- 
gress from that State. To those who had objected that 
America was not yet "ripe" for independence, Witherspoon 
had replied, "We are not only ripe but rotting." His learn- 
ing and ability made him a leading figure alike in the re- 
ligion, education, and politics of the time. A special value 
attaches to this and the few other speeches contained in 
the four volumes of Witherspoon's Worlcs, for they are al- 
most the only speeches which have come down to us from 
the Continental Congress. 



[John Witherspoon, in Congress, at Philadelphia, July 30, 1776.] 

THE ABSOLUTE necessity of union to the vigor and 
success of those measures on which we are already 
entered, is felt and confessed by every one of us 
without exception ; so far indeed that those who have ex- 
IDressed their fears or suspicions of the existing confederacy 
proving abortive, have yet agreed in saying that there must 
and shall be a confederacy for the purposes of and till the 
finishing of this war. So far is well ; and so far it is pleas- 
ing to hear them express their sentiments. But I entreat 



42 John Witherspoon 

gentlemen calmly to consider how far the giving up all 
hopes of a lasting confederacy among these States, for their 
future security and improvement, will have an effect upon 
the stability and efficacy of even the temporary confederacy, 
which all acknowledge to be necessary? I am fully persua- 
ded that when it comes to be generally known that the 
delegates of the provinces consider a lasting union as im- 
practicable, it will greatly derange the minds of the people 
and weaken their hands in defense of their country, which 
they have now undertaken with so much alacrity and spirit. 
I confess it would to me greatly diminish the glory and im- 
portance of the struggle, whether considered as for the 
rights of mankind in general, or for the prosperity and 
happiness of this continent in future times. 

It would quite depreciate the object of hope, as well as 
place it at a greater distance. For what would it signify 
to risk our possessions and shed our blood to set ourselves 
free from the encroachments and oppression of Great 
Britain, with a certainty, as soon as peace was settled with 
them, of a more lasting war, a more unnatural, more bloody, 
and much more hoiDcless war among the colonies them- 
selves.^ Some of us consider ourselves as acting for pos- 
terity at present, having little expectation of living to see 
all things fulh^ settled, and the good consequences of lib- 
erty taking effect. But how much more uncertain the hope 
of seeing the internal contests of the colonies settled upon a 
lasting and equitable footing. 

One of the greatest dangers I have always considered 
the colonies as exposed to at present is treachery among 
themselves, augmented by bribery and corrujDtion from our 
enemies. But what force would be added to the arguments 
of seducers, if they could say with truth that it was of no 
consequence whether we succeeded against Great Britain or 
not, for we must in the end be subjected, the greatest part 
of us, to the power of one or more of the strongest or larg- 
est of the American States.^ And here I would apply the 
argument which we have so often used against Great 



Necessity of Confederation 43 

Britain — that in all history wei see that the slaves of free- 
men, and the subject states of republics^ have been of all 
others the most grievously oppressed. I do not think the 
records of time can produce an instance of slaves treated 
with so much barbarity as the Helotes by the Lacedaemo- 
nians, who were the most illustrious champions for liberty 
in all Greece; or of provinces more plundered and spoiled 
than the states conquered by the Romans, for one hundred 
years before Caesar's dictatorship. The reason is plain: 
there are many great men in free states. There were many 
consular gentlemen in that great republic, who all consid- 
ered themselves as greater than kings, and must have kingly 
fortunes, which they had no other way of acquiring but by 
governments of provinces, which lasted generally but one 
year and seldom more than two. 

In what I have already said, or may say, or any cases I 
may state, I hope every gentleman will do me the justice 
to believe that I have not the most distant view to particular 
persons or societies, and mean only to reason from the usual 
course of things, and the prejudices inseparable from men 
as such. And can we help saying that there will be a much 
greater degree, not only of the corruption of particular 
persons, but the defection of particular provinces from the 
present confederacy, if they consider our success itself as 
only a prelude to contests of a more dreadful nature, and 
indeed much more properly a civil war, than that which 
now often obtains the name.^ Must not small colonies in 
particiilar be in danger of saying. We must secure our- 
selves.^ If the colonies are independent States, separate 
and disunited, after this war, we may be sure of coming 
off by the worse. We [the small States] are in no condi- 
tion to contend with several of them. Our trade in gen- 
eral, and our trade with them, must be upon such terms 
as they shall be j^leased to prescribe. What will be the 
consequence of this.^ Will they not be ready to prefer 
putting themselves under the protection of Great Britain, 
France, or Holland, rather than submit to the tyranny of 



44 John Witherspoon 

their neigJibors, who were lately their equals ? Nor would 
it be at all impossible that they should enter into such 
rash engagements as would prove their own destruction, 
from a mixture of apprehended necessity and real resent- 
ment. 

Perhaps it may be thought that breaking off this con- 
federacy, and leaving it unfinished after we have entered 
upon it, will be only postponing the duty to some future 
period ? Alas ! nothing can exceed the absurdity of that 
supposition. Does not all history cry out, that a common 
danger is the great and only effectual means of settling dif- 
ficulties, and composing differences? Have we not ex- 
perienced its efficacy in producing such a degree of union 
through these colonies, as nobody would have prophesied 
and hardly any would have expected.^ 

If, therefore, at present, wlien the danger is yet im- 
minent, when it is so far from being over that it is but 
coming to its height, we shall find it impossible to agree 
upon the terms of this confederacy, what madness is it to 
suppose that there ever will be a time^ or that circumstances 
will so change as to make it even probable that it will be 
done at an after season.^ Will not the very same difficulties 
that are in our way, be in the way of those who shall come 
after us? Is it possible that they should be ignorant of 
them, or inattentive to them ? Will they not have the same 
jealousies of each other, the same attachment to local preju- 
dices, and particular interest? So certain is this, that I 
look upon it as on the repentance of a sinner. Every day's 
delay, tliough it adds to the necessity, yet augments the 
difficulty and takes from the inclination. 

There is one thing that has been thrown out by which 
some seem to persuade themselves of, and others to be more 
indifferent about, the success of a confederacy,- — that from 
the nature of men it is to be expected that a time must 
come when it will be dissolved and broken in pieces. I am 
none of those who either deny or conceal the depravity of 
human nature till it is purified by the light of the truth and 



Necessity of Confederation 45 

renewed by the Spirit of the living God. Yet I apprehend 
there is no force in that reasoning at all. Shall we estab- 
lish nothing good because we know it can not be eternal.'' 
Shall we live without government because every constitution 
has its old age and its period? Because we know that we 
shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen out 
life? Far from it, sir: it only requires the more watchful 
attention to settle government upon the best principles and 
in the wisest manner, that it may last as long as the nature 
of things will admit. 

But I beg leave to say something more, though with some 
risk that it will be thought visionary and romantic. I do 
expect, Mr. President, a progress, as in every other human 
art, so in the order and perfection of human society, great- 
er than we have yet seen; and why should we be wanting 
to ourselves in urging it forward? It is certain, I think, 
that human science and religion have kept company to- 
gether and greatly assisted each other's progress in the 
world. I do not say that intellectual and moral qualities 
are in the same proportion in particular persons, but they 
have a great and friendly influence upon one another, in 
societies and larger bodies. 

There have been great improvements, not only in human 
knowledge, but in human nature, the progress of which can 
be easily traced in history. Everybody is able to look back 
to the time, in Eurojoe, when the liberal sentiments that 
now prevail upon the rights of conscience would have been 
looked upon as absurd. It is but little above two hundred 
years since that enlarged system, called the balance of 
power, took place; and I maintain that it is a greater step, 
from the former disunited and hostile situation of kingdoms 
and states, to their present condition, than it would be from 
their present condition to a state of more perfect and last- 
ing union. It is not impossible that in future times all the 
states in one quarter of the globe may see it proper, by 
some plan of union, to perpetuate security and peace; and 
sure I am, a well planned confederacy among the States of 



46 John Witherspoon 

America may liand down the blessings of peace and public 
order to many generations. The union of the Seven Prov- 
inces of the Low Countries has never yet been broken, and 
they are of very different degrees of strength and wealth. 
Neither have the cantons of Switzerland ever broken among 
themselves, though there are some of them Protestants, and 
some of them Papists, by public establishment. Not only 
so, but these confederacies are seldom engaged in a war 
'with other nations. Wars are generally between monarchs, 
or single states that are large. A confederation of itself 
keeps war at a distance from the bodies of which it is com- 
posed. 

For all these reasons, Sir, I Jnmibly apprehend that every 
argument from honor, interest, safety, and necessity, con- 
spire in. pressing i;s to a confederacy; and if it be seriously 
attempted, I hope, by the blessing of God upon our en- 
deavors, it will be happily accom})lished. 



II 
Adopting the Constitution 

In the words of John Quincy Adams, the Constitution of 
the United States was "extorted from the grinding necessity 
of a rehictant people." The instinct of separation among 
the States was stronger than the desire for union. Chief 
among the forces which tended to perpetuate separation 
were these: (1) The extent of the territory comprised in 
the Confederation, which was larger than the combined 
areas of France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, 
Holland, and the German Empire. (2) The difficulties of 
communication between the different sections ; the j ourney 
between Boston and New York then required more time 
and entailed more hardship than it now takes to cross the 
continent. (3) The conflicting interests among the States. 
And (4) the inveterate habit of State allegiance. "As to the 
future grandeur of America and its being a rising empire 
under one head, whether republican or monarchical," wrote 
Dean Tucker, a keen-sighted English economist who fa- 
vored the independence of the colonies, "it is one of the 
idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived 
even by the writers of romance. The mental antipathies 
and clashing interests of the Americans, their differences 
of governments, of habitudes, and manners, indicate that 
they will have no center of union and no common interest. 
They never can be united into one compact empire under 
any species of government whatever; a disunited people to 

47 



48 Select Orations 

the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, 
they will be divided or subdivided into little common- 
wealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, 
by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and 
ridges of mountains." (Bancroft, History of the United 
States, VI, p. 50.) 

The failure of government under the Articles of Con- 
federation, however, forced the States against their will 
to take steps which led to the surrender of their jealously 
guarded sovereignty. The Congress of the Confederation 
proved unable to enforce the treaty provisions of 1783 upon 
either the States or Great Britain. The government was al- 
ways without sufficient money because of the failure of the 
States to pay the just requisitions made upon them; and 
all proposals to give Congress power itself to lay taxes 
failed because of the requirement of unanimous action on 
the part of the States. The Articles gave no power to regu- 
late inter-State or foreign commerce ; and the failure of Con- 
gress to secure the navigation of the Mississippi, which 
was in the control of Sjjain, threatened to separate entirely 
the trans-Alleghany country from the Atlantic coast. Fi- 
nally, in 1786, came a series of paroxysms of anarchy over 
the paper-money question, culminating in Shays' rebellion in 
Massachusetts, which endangered the existence of the State 
governments themselves. At the same time the Annapolis 
Convention, called to devise uniform commercial regula- 
tions, recommended a second convention to "render the con- 
stitution of the federal government adequate to the exigen- 
cies of the union"; and this recommendation, ratified by 
Congress, led to the Federal Convention which framed the 
present Constitution of tlie United States. 

The proceedings in the Federal Convention, which sat at 
Philadelphia from May 14 to September 17, 1787, were 
secret, and the speeches delivered are known to us almost 



Adopting the Constitution 49 

solely through the journal of the debates kept by James 
Madison. With the submission of the Constitution to the 
States, the public discussion began. Much of the ablest part 
of this took the form of newspaper articles and pamphlets, 
such as The Federalist, written by Hamilton, Madison and 
Jay, and the Letters of the Federal Farmer, written against 
the Constitution by Richard Henry Lee: these are omitted 
as outside the scope of this collection. In the State conven- 
tions, however, many notable orations were delivered which 
were, stenographically (though imperfectly) reported; and 
a selection from these speeches constitutes the subject-mat- 
ter of this section. 

Three speeches are presented for the "new plan," and 
one against it. In selecting the former, it seemed best to 
take discussions which deal with the general structure of 
the Constitution and the need of adopting it, rather than 
with those particular details which are more fittingly dis- 
cussed in a constitutional treatise. In illustrating the Anti- 
Federalist attitude, the choice of materials is somewhat 
limited; for though the objections raised by the opposition 
range from grave to frivolous, the serious criticisms are 
directed in the main to particular details, and the frivolous 
speeches seem unworthy of preservation. The general char- 
acter of many of the opposition's efforts was well expressed 
in the following receipt for an Anti-Federalist essay: 
"Take Well-born nine times; Aristocrac}' eighteen times; 
Liberty of the Press thirteen times repeated; Liberty of 
Conscience once; Negro Slavery once mentioned; Trial by 
Jury seven times; Great Men six times repeated; Mr. Wil- 
son forty times; and lastly George ^Mason's right hand in 
a cutting box nineteen times [Mason, of Virginia, had 
said that he would have lost his hand rather than sign the 
Constitution.] Put them all together, and dish them up at 
pleasure." (^Pennsylvania Gazette, November 14, 1787.) A 



50 Select Orations 

similar point of view is expressed in an article in the 
American Museuvi for April, 1788, in which the author 
satirically says: "I would submit to any candid man, if in 
this Constitution there is the least provision for the privi- 
lege of shaving the beard ? or is there any mode laid down 
to take the measure of a pair of breeches?" 

The contest over the ratification was chiefly fought out in 
the States of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, and 
New York. The action of the Massachusetts Federalists in 
conciliating the powerful Anti-Federalist interests in that 
State, and accepting the proposal to ratify with the recom- 
mendation of amendments desired (in place of rejection, 
or conditional ratification), was probably decisive of the 
contest; all States which acted subsequently to Massachu- 
setts followed this course. The ratification by New Hamp- 
shire gave the nine States necessary to secure the Constitu- 
tion, and September 13th Congress voted to put the new 
government into operation. The following table showing 
the progress of ratification will be of service for reference: 

The Constitution reported by the Conven- 
tion. 

The Constitution transmitted by Congress 
to the States. 

(1) Delaware ratifies, unanimously. 

(2) Pennsylvania ratifies, 46 to 23. 

(3) New Jersey ratifies, unanimously. 

(4) Georgia ratifies, unanimously. 

(5) Connecticut ratifies, 128 to 40. 

(6) Massachusetts ratifies, 187 to l68, and 
'proposes nine amendments. 

April 26. (7) Maryland ratifies, 63 to 11, the mi- 
nority proposing twenty-eight 
amendments. 



1787, Sept. 


17. 


Sept. 


28. 


Dec. 


6. 


Dec. 


12. 


Dec. 


18. 


1788, Jan. 


2. 


Jan. 


9. 


Feb. 


6. 



Adopting the Constitution 51 

May 23. (8) South Carolina ratijfies, 149 to 73, 
and proposes four amendments. 

June 21. (9) New Hampshire ratifies, 57 to i6, and 
proposes twelve amendments. The 
Constitution assured. 

June 26. (10) Virginia ratifies, 89 to 79, and pro- 
poses a bill of rights and twenty 
amendments. 

July 26. (11) New York ratifies, 30 to 27, and pro- 
poses thirty-two amendments. 

Sept. 13. Congress votes to put the Constitution 

into operation. 

1789, Nov. 21. (12) North Carolina ratifies, 192 to 75, 

and proposes a bill of rights and 
twenty-six amendments. 

1790, May 29. (13) Rhode Island ratifies, and proposes a 

bill of rights and twenty-one 
amendments. The union completed. 

For the study of this period the following books are 
valuable: Curtis, Constitutional History of the United 
States; Bancroft, History of the Constitution; IVIcLaugh- 
lin, Confederation and Constitution; Schouler, History of 
the United States, Vol. I ; McMaster, History of the Peo- 
ple of the United States, Vol. I ; Hunt, James Madison; 
Lodge, Alexander Hamilton; Tyler, Patrick Henry. 



6. JAMES WILSON, of Pennsylvania.— FOR THE 
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 

(Delivered in Philadelphia, November 26, 1787.) 

The first and by far the most bitter contest over the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution occurred in Penn- 
sylvania, the supporters of whose extremely democratic 
and impractical State constitution became Anti-Federalists 
almost to a man, because the new Federal plan was sup- 
ported by their opponents in State politics. The prepon- 
derance in numbers, however, as well as in ability, was 
with the Federalists, among whom James Wilson clearly 
ranked first. Born in Scotland and educated in its uni- 
versities, he had shown himself, in the language of the 
historian McMaster, "undoubtedly the best prepared, by 
deep and systematic study of the history and science of 
government," of all the fifty-five members of the Federal 
Convention. He had there taken a stand, with Randolph 
of Virginia, and others, for a truly national government, 
with a single executive; he had opposed the equal repre- 
sentation of the States in the Senate; and had advocated 
the election of Senators directly by the people. In an 
address to the citizens of Philadelphia, delivered October 
6, 1787, he had convincingly answered the objection (so 
often to be raised by the Anti-Federalists) that the Con- 

James Wilson. Born in Scotland, 1742; educated at the universities of St. 
Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh; emigrated to America, 1763; member of the 
Pennsylvania convention, 1774; of the Continental Congress, 1775-77, 1782, and 
1785; of the Federal Convention, 1787; of the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, 
1787; appointed judgeof tlie Supreme Court of the United States, 1789; died 1798. 

52 



On the Federal Constitution 53 

stitution menaced liberty by its omission of a "bill of 
rights"; he pointed out that whereas in a State constitution 
all powers are granted which are not specifically with- 
held, in the proposed Federal Constitution "everything 
which is not given is reserved," and hence such guarantees 
are needless. 

The speech given below was delivered in the Pennsyl- 
vania ratifying convention on November 26, 1787- It is 
generally regarded as "one of the most comprehensive and 
luminous commentaries on the Constitution" which has 
come down to us from that period. Of Wilson's power as 
a speaker, Alexander Graydon said, "He produced greater 
orations than any man I have heard." The final ratifica- 
tion of the Constitution by Pennsylvania, however, was 
carried by only 46 yeas to 23 nays — a vote which showed 
exactly the same alignment of delegates (except for one 
man) that had been revealed by the first test vote at the 
beginning of the convention. The conversion of this one 
man, therefore, was the net result of all the able oratory 
and arguments on the Federal side. (See Harding, "Party 
Struggles Over the First Pennsylvania Constitution," in 
Report of American Historical Association for ISP^, p. 



54 James Wilson 

[James Wilson in tlie Pennsylvania ratifying Convention, 
at Philadelphia, November ^6, 1787.] 

THE SYSTEM proposed by the late convention for the 
government of the United States is now before you. 
Of that convention I had the honor to be a member. 
As I am the only member of that body who has the honor 
to be also a member of this, it may be expected that I should 
prepare the way for the deliberations of this assembly, by 
unfolding the difficulties which the late convention were 
obliged to encounter; by pointing out the end which they 
proposed to accomplish; and by tracing the general prin- 
ciples which they have adopted for the accomplishment of 
that end. 

To form a good system of government for a single city or 
state, however limited as to territory, or inconsiderable as 
to numbers, has been thought to require the strongest efforts 
of human genius. With what conscious diffidence, then, 
must the members of the convention have revolved in their 
minds the immense undertaking which was before them. 
Their views could not be confined to a small or a single com- 
munity, but were expanded to a great number of States ; sev- 
eral of which contain an extent of territory, and resources 
of population, equal to those of some of the most respectable 
kingdoms on the other side of the Atlantic. Nor were even 
these the only objects to be comprehended within their de- 
liberations. Numerous States yet unformed, myriads of the 
human race, who will inhabit regions hitherto uncultivated, 
were to be affected by the result of their proceedings. It 
was necessary, therefore, to form their calculations on a 
scale commensurate to a large portion of the globe. 

For my own part, I have been often lost in astonishment 
at the vastness of the prospect before us. To open the navi- 
gation of a single river was lately thought, in Europe, an en- 
terprise adequate to imperial glory.* But could the com- 

*The river Scheldt was closed to navigation by the treaty of Westphalia, 
1648, to appease the commercial jealousy of the Dutch Republic. In 1783 the 
Emperor Joseph II., whose territories included what is now Belgium, attempted 
unsuccessfully to overturn this arrangement; but the river was not reopened 
until 1792, when Belgium was conciuered by the troops of the French Republic. 



On the Federal Constitution 55 

mercial scenes of the Scheldt be compared with those that, 
under a good government, will be exhibited on the Hudson, 
the Delaware, the Potomac, and the numerous other rivers, 
that water and are intended to enrich the dominions of the 
United States? 

The difficulty of the business was equal to its magnitude. 
No small share of wisdom and address is requisite to com- 
bine and reconcile the jarring interests that prevail, or 
seem to prevail, in a single community. The United States 
contain already thirteen governments mutually independent. 
Those governments present to the Atlantic a front of fif- 
teen hundred miles in extent. Their soil, their climates, 
their productions, their dimensions, their numbers, are dif- 
ferent. In many instances, a diiference and even an oppo- 
sition subsists among their interests ; and a difference and 
even an opposition is imagined to subsist in many more. 
An apparent interest produces the same attachment as a 
real one, and is often pursued with no less perseverance and 
vigor. When all these circumstances are seen and atten- 
tively considered, will any member of this honorable body 
be surprised that such a diversity of things produced a pro- 
portioned diversity of sentiment.^ Will he be surprised 
that such a diversity of sentiment rendered a spirit of mu- 
tual forbearance and conciliation indispensably necessary 
to the success of the great work ? And will he be surprised 
that mutual concessions and sacrifices were the conse- 
quences of mutual forbearance and conciliation.'' When 
the springs of opposition were so numerous and strong, and 
poured forth their waters in courses so varying, need we be 
surprised that the stream formed by their conjunction was 
impelled in a direction somewhat different from that which 
each of them would have taken separately? 

I have reason to think that a difficulty arose in the minds 
of some members of the convention from another considera- 
tion — their ideas of the temper and disposition of the peo- 
ple for whom the constitution is proposed. The citizens of 
the United States, however different in some other respects. 



56 James Wilson 

are well known to agree in one strongly marked feature of 
their character — a warm and keen sense of freedom and in- 
dependence. This sense has been heightened by the glori- 
ous result of their late struggle against all the efforts of 
one of the most powerful nations of Europe. It was ap- 
prehended, I believe, by some^ that a people so high-spirit- 
ed would ill brook the restraints of an efficient government. 
I confess that this consideration did not influence my con- 
duct. I knew my constituents to be high-spirited; but I 
knew them also to possess sound sense. I knew that^ in the 
events they would be best pleased with that system of gov- 
ernment which would best promote their freedom and happi- 
ness. I hav^e often revolved this subject in my mind. I 
have supposed one of my constituents to ask me. Why I gave 
such a vote on a particular question ? I have always thought 
it would be a satisfactory answer to say, Because I judged, 
upon the best consideration I could give, that such a vote 
was right. I have thought that it would be but a very 
poor compliment to my constituents to say that, in my opin- 
ion, such a vote would have been proper, but that I sup- 
posed a contrary one would be more agreeable to those who 
sent me to the convention. I could not, even in idea, ex- 
pose myself to such a retort as, upon the last answer, might 
have been justly made to me: Pray, sir, what reason have 
you for supposing that a right vote would displease your 
constituents? Is this the proper return for the high con- 
fidence they have placed in you.^ If they have given cause 
for such a surmise, it was by choosing a representative who 
would entertain such an opinion of them. I was imder no 
apprehension, that the good people of this State would 
behold with displeasure the briglitncss of the rays of dele- 
gated power, when it only proved the superior splendor of 
the luminary of which those rays were only the reflection. 
A very important difficulty arose from comparing the 
extent of the country to be governed, with the kind of gov- 
ernment which it would be proper to establish in it. It has 
been an opinion countenanced by high authority [Montes- 



On the Federal Constitution 57 

quieu, Spirit of Latvs] "that the natural property of small 
states is to be governed as a republic ; of middling ones, to 
be subject to a monarch; and of large empires, to be swayed 
by a despotic prince; and that the consequence is, that in 
order to preserve the principles of the established govern- 
ment the state must be supported in the extent it has ac- 
quired; and that the spirit of the state will alter in propor- 
tion as it extends or contracts its limits." This opinion 
seems to be supported, rather than contradicted, by the his- 
tory of the governments in the Old World. Here then the 
difficulty appears in full view. On one hand, the United 
States contain an immense extent of territory, and, accord- 
ing to the foregoing opinion, a despotic government is best 
adapted to that extent. On the other hand, it was well 
known that, however the citizens of the United States 
might, with pleasure, submit to the legitimate restraints of 
a republican constitution, they would reject with indigna- 
tion the fetters of despotism. What then was to be done ? 
The idea of a confederate republic presented itself. This 
kind of constitution has been thought to have "all the in- 
ternal advantages of a republican, together with the ex- 
ternal force of a monarchical government." Its descrip- 
tion is, "a convention, by which several states agree to be- 
come members of a larger one, which they intend to es- 
tablish. It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that con- 
stitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of further 
association." The expanding quality of such a government 
is peculiarly fitted for the United States, the greatest part 
of whose territory is yet uncultivated. 

But while this form of government enabled us to sur- 
mount the difficulty last mentioned, it conducted us to an- 
other, of which I am now to take notice. It left us almost 
without precedent or guide; and, consequently, without the 
benefit of that instruction which, in many cases, may be 
derived from the constitution, and history, and experience 
of other nations. Several associations have frequently 
been called by the name of confederate states, which have 



^8 James Wilson 

not, in propriety of language, deserved it. The Swiss Can- 
tons are connected only by alliances. The United Nether- 
lands are indeed an assemblage of societies; but this as- 
semblage constitutes no new one; and, thereforCj it does 
not correspond with the full definition of a confederate re- 
public. The Germanic body [the Empire] is composed of 
such disproportioned and discordant materials, and its struc- 
ture is so intricate and complex, that little useful knowledge 
can be drawn from it. Ancient history distSloses, and barely 
discloses to our view, some confederate republics — the Achae- 
an League, the Lycian Confederacy, and the Amphictj'onic 
Council. But the facts recorded concerning their consti- 
tutions are so few and general, and their histories are 
so unmarked and defective, that no satisfactory in- 
formation can be collected from them concerning many 
particular circumstances, from an accurate discernment and 
comparison of which alone legitimate and practical in- 
ferences can be made from one constitution to another. 
Besides, the situation and dimensions of these confederacies, 
and the state of society, manners, and habits in them, were 
so different from those of the United States, that the most 
correct description could have supplied but a very small 
fund of applicable remark. Tims, in forming this system, 
we were deprived of many advantages which the history and 
experience of other ages and other countries would, in 
other cases, have afforded us. 

Permit me to add, in this place, that the science even of 
government itself, seems yet to be almost in its state of in- 
fancy. Governments, in general, have been the result of 
force, of fraud, and of accident. After a period of six 
thousand years has elapsed since the creation, the United 
States exliibit to the world the first instance, as far as we 
can learn, of a nation, unattacked by external force, un- 
convulsed by domestic insurrections, assembling voluntarily, 
deliberating fully, and deciding calmly, concerning that 
system of government, under which they would wish that 
they and their posterity should live. The ancients, so en- 



On the Federal Constitution 59 

lightened on other subjects, were very uninformed with re- 
gard to this. They seem scarcely to have had any idea of 
any other kinds of government, than the three simple forms 
designated by the epithets, monarchical, aristocratical, and 
democratical. I know that much and pleasing ingenuity has 
been exerted in modern times, in drawing entertaining par- 
allels between some of the ancient constitutions, and some 
of the mixed governments that have since existed in Eu- 
rope. But I much suspect that, on strict examination, the 
instances of resemblance will be found to be few and weak; 
to be suggested by the improvements, which, in subsequent 
ages, have been made in government ; and not to be drawn 
immediately from the ancient constitutions themselves, as 
they were intended and understood by those who framed 
them. To illustrate this, a snuilar observation may be made 
on another subject. Admiring critics have fancied, that 
they have discovered in their favorite Homer the seeds of 
all the improvements in philosophy, and in the sciences, 
made since his time. What induces me to be of this opin- 
ion is, that Tacitus, the profound politician Tacitus, who 
lived towards the latter end of those ages which are now 
denominated ancient, who undoubtedly had studied the con- 
stitutions of all the states and kingdoms known before and 
in his time, and who certainly was qualified, in an uncommon 
degree, for understanding the full force and operation of 
each of them, considers, after all he had known and read, 
a mixed government, composed of the three simple forms, 
as a thing rather to be wished than expected ; and he thinks 
that if such a government could even be instituted, its dura- 
tion could not be long. One thing is very certain, that the 
doctrine of representation in government was altogether 
unknown to the ancients. Now, the knowledge and practice 
of this doctrine is, in my opinion, essential to every system, 
that can possess the qualities of freedom, wisdom, and 
energy. 

It is worthy of remark, and the remark may, perhaps, 
excite some surprise, that representation of the people is 



6o James Wilson 

not, even at this day, the sole principle of any government 
in Europe. Great Britain boasts, and she may well boast, 
of the improvement she has made in politics, by the admis- 
sion of representation; for the improvement is important as 
far as it goes : but it by no means goes far enough. Is the 
executive power of Great Britain founded on representation? 
This is not pretended. Before the Revolution [of I688] 
many of the kings claimed to reign by divine right and 
others by hereditary right; and even at the Revolution, 
nothing farther was effected or attempted, than the recogni- 
tion of certain parts of an original contract, supposed at 
some remote period to have been made between the king 
and the people. A contract seems to exclude, rather than 
to imply, delegated power. The judges of Great Britain 
are appointed by the Crown. The judicial authority, there- 
fore, does not depend upon representation, even in its most 
remote degree. Does representation prevail in the legisla- 
tive department of the British government.'' Even here 
it does not predominate ; though it may serve as a check. 
The legislature consists of three branches, the king, the 
Lords, and the Commons. Of these, only the latter are 
supposed by the constitution to represent the authority of 
the people. This short analysis clearly shows to what a 
narrow corner of the British constitution the principle of 
representation is confined. I believe it does not extend 
farther, if so far, in any other government in Europe. For 
the American States were reserved the glory and the hap- 
piness of diffusing this vital principle through all the con- 
stituent parts of the government. Representation is the 
chain of communication between the people and those to 
whom they have committed the exercise of the powers of 
government. This chain may consist of one or more links; 
but in all cases it should be sufficiently strong and discern- 
ible. 

To be left without guide or precedent was not the only 
difficulty in whieli the convention were involved by propos- 
ing to their constituents a plan of a confederate republic. 



On the Federal Constitution 6i 

They found themselves embarrassed with another of pecu- 
liar delicacy and importance; I mean that of drawing a 
proper line between the National government and the gov- 
ernments of the several States. It was easy to discover a 
proper and satisfactory principle on the subject. What- 
ever object of government is confined in its operation and 
effects within the. bounds of a particular State, should be 
considered as belonging to the government of that State; 
whatever object of government extends in its operation or 
effects beyond the bounds of a particular State, should be 
considered as belonging to the government of the United 
States. But though this principle be sound and satisfactory, 
its application to particular cases would be accompanied 
with much difficulty; because, in its application, room must 
be allowed for great discretionary latitude of construction 
of the principle. In order to lessen or remove the difficulty 
arising from discretionary construction on this subject, an 
enumeration of particular instances, in which the applica- 
tion of the principle ought to take place, has been attempted 
with much industry and care. It is only in mathematical 
science that a line can be described with mathematical pre- 
cision. But I flatter myself that, upon the strictest investi- 
gation, the enumeration will be found to be safe and unex- 
ceptionable; and accurate, too, in as great a degree as ac- 
curacy can be expected in a subject of this nature. Par- 
ticulars under this head will be more properly explained 
when we descend to the minute view of the enumeration 
which is made in the proposed Constitution. 

After all, it will be necessary that, on a subject so pecu- 
liarly delicate as this, much prudence, much candor, much 
moderation, and much liberalitiy should be exercised and 
displayed, both by the Federal government and by the gov- 
ernments of the several States. It is to be hoped that those 
virtues in government will be exercised and displayed, when 
we consider that the powers of the Federal government, 
and those of the State governments, are drawn from sources 
equally pure. If a difference can be discovered between 



62 James Wilson 

them, it is in favor of the P'ederal government, because that 
government is founded on a representation of the whole 
Union; whereas the government of anj'^ particular State is 
foimded only on the representation of a part, inconsiderable 
wlxen compared with the whole. It is not more reasonable 
to supjjose that the counsels of tlie whole will embrace the 
interest of every part, than that the counsels of any part 
will embrace the interests of the whole. 

I intend not, sir, by this description of the difficulties 
with which tlie convention was surrounded, to magnify their 
skill or their merit in surmounting tliem, or to insinuate 
that any predicament, in which the convention stood, should 
prevent the closest and most cautious scrutiny into the per- 
formance, which they have exhibited to their constituents and 
to the world. ISIy intention is of far other and higher aim 
— to evince by the conflicts and difficulties which must arise 
from the many and powerful causes which I have enumer- 
ated, that it is hopeless and impracticable to form a consti- 
tution which will in every part be acceptable to every citi- 
zen or even to every government in the United States ; and 
that all which can be expected is, to form such a constitu- 
tion as upon the whole is the best that can possibly be ob- 
tained. Man and perfection ! — a State and perfection ! — 
an assemblage of States and perfection ! Can we reason- 
ably expect, however ardently we may wish, to behold the 
glorious union.'' 

The advantages and necessity of civil government among 
individuals in society are not greater or stronger than, in 
some situations and circumstances, are the advantages and 
necessity of a federal government among states. A natural 
and a very important question now presents itself. Is such 
the situation, are such the circumstances, of the United 
States.^ A proper answer to this question will unfold some 
very interesting truths. 

The United States may adopt any one of four different 
systems. They may become consolidated into one govern- 



On the Federal Constitution 63 

ment, in which the separate existence of the States shall be 
entirely absorbed. They may reject any plan of union or 
association and act as separate and unconnected States. 
They may form two or more confederacies. They may 
unite in one federal republic. Which of these systems ought 
to have been proposed by the convention.^ To support with 
vigor a single • government over the whole extent of the 
United States^ would demand a system of the most unquali- 
fied and the most unremitted desj^otisni. Such a number of 
separate States, contiguous in situation, unconnected and 
disunited in government, would be, at one time, the prey 
of foreign force, foreign influence, and foreign intrigue; at 
another, the victim of mutual rage, rancor, and revenge. 
Neither of these systems found advocates in the late con- 
vention : I presume they will not find advocates in this. 
Would it be proper to divide the United States into two or 
more confederacies.'' It will not be unadvisable to take a 
more minute survey of this subject. Some aspects, under 
which it may be viewed, are far from being, at first sight, 
uninviting. Two or more confederacies would be each more 
compact, and more manageable, than a single one extending 
over the same territory. By dividing the United States into 
two or more confederacies, the great collision of interests, 
apparently or really different and contrary, in the whole 
extent of their dominion, would be broken, and in a great 
measure disappear in the several parts. But these advan- 
tages, which are discovered from certain points of view, are 
greatly overbalanced by inconveniences that will appear 
on a more accurate examination.. Animosities, and perhaps 
wars, would arise from assigning the extent, the limits, and 
the rights of the different confederacies. The expenses of 
governing would be multiplied by the number of federal 
governments. The danger resulting from foreign influence 
and mutual dissensions would not, perhaps, be less great 
and alarming in the instance of different confederacies, than 
in the instance of dift'erent though more numerous unasso- 
ciated States. These observations, and many others that 



64 James Wilson 

might be made on the subject, will be sufficient to evince 
that a division of the United States into a number of sep- 
arate confederacies, would probably be an unsatisfactory 
and an unsuccessful experiment. The remaining system, 
which the American States may adopt, is a union of them 
imder one confederate republic. It will not be necessary 
to employ much time or many arguments to show that this 
is the most eligible system that can be proposed. By adopt- 
ing this system, the vigor and decision of a wide-spread 
monarchy may be joined to the freedom and beneficence of 
a contracted republic. The extent of territory, the di- 
versity of climate and soil, the number and greatness and 
connection of lakes and rivers with which the United States 
are intersected and almost surrounded, all indicate an en- 
larged government to be fit and advantageous for them. 
The principles and dispositions of their citizens indicate 
that in this government liberty shall reign triumphant. Such 
indeed have been the general opinions and wishes enter- 
tained since the era of our independence. If those opinions 
and wishes are as well founded as they have been general, 
the late convention were justified in proposing to their con- 
stituents one confederate republic, as the best system of a 
national government for the United States. 

There are three simple species of government: mon- 
archy, where the supreme power is in a single person; 
aristocracy, where the supreme power is in a select assembly, 
the members of which either fill up, by election, the va- 
cancies in their own body, or succeed to their places in it by 
inheritance, property, or in respect of some personal right 
or qualification; a republic or democracy, where the people 
at large retain the supreme power, and act either collective- 
ly or by representation. Each of these species of govern- 
ment has its advantages and disadvantages. 

The advantages of a monarchy are — strength, despatch, 
secrecy, unity of counsel. Its disadvantages are — tyranny, 
expense, ignorance of the situation and wants of the peo- 



On the Federal Constitution 65 

pie, insecurity, unnecessary wars, evils attending elections 
or successions. 

The advantage of aristocracy is wisdom, arising from 
experience and education. Its disadvantages are — ^dissen- 
sions among themselves, oppression to the lower orders. 

The advantages of democracy are — liberty, equal, 
cautious, and salutary laws, public spirit, frugality, peace, 
opportunities of exciting and producing the abilities of the 
best citizens. Its disadvantages are — dissensions, the delay 
and disclosure of public counsels, the imbecility of public 
measures retarded by the necessity of numerous consent. 

A government may be composed of two or more of the 
simple forms above mentioned. Such is the British govern- 
ment. It would be an improper government for the United 
States, because it is inadequate to such an extent of terri- 
tory, and because it is suited to an establishment of dif- 
ferent orders of men. A more minute comparison between 
some parts of the British constitution and some parts of the 
plan before us, may, perhaps, find a proper place in a sub- 
sequent period of our business. 

What is the nature and kind of that government which 
has been proposed for the United States by the late con- 
vention.'' In its principle it is purely democratical ; but that 
principle is applied in different forms, in order to obtain 
the advantages and exclude the inconveniences of the simple 
modes of government. 

If we take an extended and accurate view of it, we shall 
find the streams of power running in different directions, 
in different dimensions, and at different heights, watering 
adorning, and fertilizing the fields and meadows through 
which their courses are led; but if we trace them, we shall 
discover that they all originally flow from one abundant 
fountain. In this constitution, all authority is derived from 

THE PEOPLE. 

Fit occasions will hereafter offer for particular remarks 
on the different parts of the plan. I have now to ask pardon 
of the house for detaining them so long. 



7. PATRICK HENRY, of Virginia.— AGAINST THE 
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 

(In the Virginia ratifying Convention, at Richmond, June 5, 1788.) 

The most brilliant and dramatic fight against the Fed- 
eral Constitution occurred in Virginia, where Patrick 
Henry, George Mason, William Grayson, and James Mon- 
roe were arrayed in opposition, and James Madison, Ed- 
mund Randolph, and John Marshall fought in its favor. 
Jeft'erson wrote from Paris in a sense opposed to the Con- 
stitution; while Washington, from his home at Mt. Vernon, 
exerted his great influence in its favor. 

Henry made six long speeches in the Convention, besides 
twice that number of shorter ones directed to particular 
clauses. All his great oratorical powers were called into 
action; in later life Madison said that when he [Madison] 
would make "a most conclusive arginnent in favor of the 
Constitution, Henry would rise to reply, and by some sig- 
nificant action, such as a pause, a shake of the head, or a 
striking gesture, before he uttered a word, would undo all 
that Madison had been trying to do for an hour before." 
(Grigsby, Virginia Convention of 1788, I, p. 83.) In con- 
sidering Henry's views, it should be remembered that they 
were formed at a time when railroads, telegraphs, daily 
newspapers, and other agencies for disseminating informa- 
tion and forming and organizing public opinion, were un- 
known; and when therefore the people possessed far inferior 
checks upon the acts of their representatives than today. 

66 



On the Federal Constitution 67 

The convention met on June 2, 1788, when eight of the 
necessary nine States had already ratified; and it sat for 
twenty-three days, ratifying the Constitution by the close 
vote of 89 to 79. Following the precedent set by Massa- 
chusetts, the convention recommended twenty amendments, 
and the addition of a bill of rights. 

A stenographic (though imperfect) report of the debates 
was taken, which may be found in volume three of Elliot's 
Debates. The speech which follows was delivered June 
5th, and was Henry's first extended discussion of the sub- 
ject. The reference in the first sentence is to Henry Lee 
of Westmoreland county ("Light-horse Harry") who im- 
mediately preceded Henry in the debate. He had spoken 
of "the eclat and brilliancy which have distinguished that 
gentleman, the honors with which he has been dignified, 
and the brilliant talents which he has so often displayed;" 
but had deprecated Henry's alarmist attitude towards the 
proposed Constitution. 

[Patrick Henry, in the Virginia ratification convention, at Riclimond, 
June 5, 1788.] 

MR. Chairman : I am much obliged to the very worthy 
gentleman for his encomium. I wish I were pos- 
sessed of talents, or possessed of anything that 
might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not 
free from suspicion ; I am apt to entertain doubts. I rose 
yesterday to ask a question ["What right had they to say, 
'We, the people,' instead of 'We, the States'.^"], which arose 
in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought 
the meaning of my interrogation was obvious : the fate of 
this question and of America may depend on this. Have 
they said, "We, the States?" Have they made a proposal 
of a compact between States.^ If they had, this would be 
a confederation: it is otherwise most clearly a consolidated 
government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little 
thing — the expression, "We, the people," instead of, "the 



68 Patrick Henry 

States" of America. I need not take much pains to show, 
that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious, 
impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like Eng- 
land — a compact between prince and people; with checks 
on the former to secure the liberty of the latter.'' Is this 
a confederacy, like Holland — an association of a number 
of independent states, each of which retains its individual 
sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the people 
retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been 
adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarm- 
ing transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated gov- 
ernment. We have no detail of those great considerations 
which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we 
should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a revo- 
lution as radical as that Avhich separated us from Great 
Britain. It is as radical, if in this transition our rights 
and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the 
States relinquished : and can not we plainly see that this is 
actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, 
liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all 
pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered 
insecure if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by 
some and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relin- 
quishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of 
that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans ? 
It is said eight States have adopted this plan. I declare 
that if twelve States and an half had adopted it, I would, 
with manly firmness and in spite of an erring world, reject 
it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, 
nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, 
but how your liberties can be secured ; for liberty ought to 
be the direct end of j^our government. 

Having premised these things, I sliall, with the aid of 
my judgment and information, which I confess are not 
extensive, go into the discussion of this system more mi- 
nutely. Is it necessary for your liberty, that you should 
abandon those great rights by tlie adoption of this system? 



On the Federal Constitution 69 

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury, and the liberty 
of the jsress, necessary for your liberty? Will the aban- 
donment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of 
your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings 
— give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything 
else ! But I am fearful I have lived long enough to be- 
come an old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible at- 
tachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined 
enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned: if so, I am con- 
tented to be so. I say, the time has been when every pulse 
of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, 
had a counterpart in the breast of every true American. 
But suspicions have gone forth — suspicions of my integrity. 
It has been publiclj'^ reported that my professions are not 
real. Twenty-three years ago was I supposed a traitor to 
my country? I was then said to be a bane of sedition, be- 
cause I supported the rights of my country. I may be 
thought suspicious when I say our privileges and rights 
are in danger. But, sir, a number of the people of this 
country are weak enough to think these things are too true. 
I am happy to find that the gentleman on the other side 
declares they are groundless. But, sir, suspicion is a virtue, 
as long as its object is the preservation of the public good, 
and as long as it stays within proper bounds : should it fall 
on me, I am contented: conscious rectitude is a powerful 
consolation. I trust there are many who think my profes- 
sions for the public good to be real. Let your suspicion look 
to both sides : there are many on the other side who, pos- 
sibly, may have been persuaded of the necessity of these 
measures which I conceive to be dangerous to liberty. Guard 
with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one 
who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will 
preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up 
that force, you are inevitably ruined. I am answered by 
gentlemen that, though I may speak of terrors, yet the fact 
is that we are surrounded by none of the dangers I appre- 
hend. I conceive this new government to be one of those 



JO Patrick Henry 

dangers : it has produced those horrors which distress many 
of our best citizens. We are come hither to preserve the 
poor commonwealth of Virginia, if it can be possibly done: 
something must be done to jireserve your liberty and mine. 
The Confederation, this same despised government, merits 
in my opinion the highest encomium: it carried us through 
a long and dangerous war; it rendered us victorious in that 
bloody conflict with a powerful nation; it has secured us 
a territory greater than any European monarch possesses; 
and shall a government which has been thus strong and 
vigorous be accused of imbecility, and abandoned for 
want of energy.^ Consider what you are about to do, be- 
fore you part with this government. Take longer time in 
reckoning things : revolutions like this have happened in 
almost every country in Europe: similar examples are to 
be found in ancient Greece and ancient Rome — instances of 
the people losing their liberty by their own carelessness 
and the ambition of a few. We are cautioned by the hon- 
orable gentleman who presides [Edmund Pendleton] 
against faction and turbulence. I acknowledge that licen- 
tiousness is dangerous, and that it ought to be provided 
against: I acknowledge also the new form of government 
may effectually prevent it: yet there is another thing it 
will as eff'ectually do — it will oppress and ruin the people. 
There are sufficient guards placed against sedition and 
licentiousness ; for when power is given to this government 
to suppress these, or for any other purpose, the language it 
assumes is clear, express and unequivocal; but when this 
Constitution speaks of privileges, there is an ambiguity, sir, 
a fatal ambiguity — an ambiguity which is very astonishing. 
In the clause under consideration, there is the strangest 
language that I can conceive. I mean when it says, that 
there shall not be more representatives than one for every 
;30,C00. Now, sir, how easy is it to evade this privilege.-* 
"The number shall not exceed one for every 30,000." This 
may be satisfied by one representative from each State. 
Let our numbers be ever so great, this immense continent 



On the Federal Constitution 71 

may, by this artful expression, be reduced to have but thir- 
teen representatives. I confess this construction is not 
natural; but the ambiguity of the expression lays a good 
ground for a quarrel. . . . This possibility of reduc- 
ing the number to one for each State approximates to prob- 
ability by that other expression, "but each State shall at 
least have one representative." ... I shall be told I 
am continually afraid : but, sir, I have strong cause of ap- 
prehension. In some parts of the jjlan before you, the great 
rights of freemen are endangered, in other parts absolutely 
taken away. How does your trial by jury stand .^ In civil 
cases gone — not sufficiently secured in criminal — this best 
privilege is gone. But we are told that we need not fear 
because those in power, being our representatives, will not 
abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well 
versed in history; but I will submit to your recollection, 
whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licen- 
tiousness of the people, or hj the tyranny of rulers. I 
imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of 
tyranny. Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those 
nations who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negli- 
gently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have 
groaned under intolerable despotism ! Most of the human 
race are now in this deplorable condition. And those nations 
who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and splendor, 
have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their 
own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, 
they lost their freedom. My great objection to this gov- 
ernment is, that it does not leave us the means of defending 
our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by 
some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an ac- 
quisition of strength — an army, and the militia of the 
States. This is an idea extremely ridiculous; gentlemen 
can not be in earnest. This acquisition will trample on our 
fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against 
that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe. Have 



72 Patrick Henry 

we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our 
onl^v defense, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress ? 

The honorable gentleman said that great danger would 
ensue if the Convention rose without adopting this system. 
I ask, Where is that danger? I see none. Other gentlemen 
have told us. within these walls, that tlie union is gone — or 
that the union will be gone. Is not this trifling with the 
judgment of their fellow-citizens.? Till they tell us the 
grounds of their fears, I will consider them as imaginary. 
I rose to make inquiry where those dangers were: they 
could make no answer: I believe I never shall have that 
answer. Is there a disposition in the people of this coun- 
trj^ to revolt against the dominion of laws ? . . . . 
Whither is the spirit of America gone.? Whither is the 
genius of America fled.? It was but j-esterday when our 
enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the 
people of this country could not be appalled by their pom- 
pous armaments : they stopped their career, and victoriously 
captured them. Wliere is the peril now, compared to that.? 
Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for 
us, there is no real danger from Europe: that country is 
engaged in more arduous business : from that quarter, there 
is no cause of fear: you may sleep in safety forever for 
them. Where is the danger? If, sir, there was any, I 
would recur to the American spirit to defend us — that spirit 
which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difficulties : 
to that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer 
to prevent our adopting a system destructive to liberty. Let 
not gentlemen be told, that it is not safe to reject this gov- 
ernment. Wherefore is it not safe? W"e are told there are 
dangers, but those dangers are ideal; they can not be dem- 
onstrated. 

To encourage us to adopt it, they tell us that there is a 
plain easy way of getting amendments. When I come to 
contemi^late this part, I suppose that I am mad, or that my 
countrymen are so. The way to amendment is, in my con- 
ception, shut. Let us consider this plain easy way. "The 



On the Federal Constitution 73 

Congress^ whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem 
it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution ; 
or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of 
the several States, shall call a convention for proposing 
amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all 
intents and jjurposes, as part of this Constitution, when 
ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several 
States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the 
one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by 
the Congress. . . ." Hence it appears that three- 
fourths of the States must ultimately agree to any amend- 
ments that may be necessary. Let us consider the conse- 
quences of this. However uncharitable it may appear, yet I 
must express my opinion — that the most unworthy charac- 
ters may get into power and prevent the introduction of 
amendments. Let us suppose (for the case is supposable, 
possible, and probable), that you happen to deal these 
powers to unworthy hands ; will the}' relinquish powers al- 
ready in their possession, or agree to amendments ? Two- 
thirds of the Congress, or of the State legislatures, are nec- 
essary even to propose amendments. If one-third of these 
be unworthy men, they may prevent the application for 
amendments ; but what is destructive and mischievous is, 
that three-fourths of the State legislatures, or of the State 
conventions, must concur in the amendments when proposed ! 
In such numerous bodies, there must necessarily be some de- 
signing, bad men. To suppose that so large a number as 
three-fourths of the States will concur, is to suppose that 
they will possess genius, intelligence, and integrity, ap- 
proaching to miraculous. It would, indeed, be miraculous, 
that they should concur in the same amendments, or even in 
such as would bear some likeness to one another. For four 
of the smallest States, that do not collectively contain one- 
tenth part of the pojjulation of the United States, may ob- 
struct the most salutary and necessary amendments. Nay, 
in these four States, six-tenths of the people may reject 
these amendments ; and suppose that amendments shall be 



74 Patrick Henry 

opposed to amendments (which is highly probable)^ is it 
possible that three-fourths can ever agree to the same 
amendments? A bare majority in these four small States 
may hinder the adoption of amendments ; so that we may 
fairly and justly conclude^ that one-twentieth part of the 
American people may prevent the removal of the most griev- 
ous inconveniences and oiDi^ression, by refusing to accede 
to amendments. A trifling minority may reject the most 
salutary amendments. Is this an easy mode of securing the 
public liberty.'* It is, sir, a most fearful situation, when 
the most contemjjtible minority can prevent the alteration 
of the most oppressi^'e government; for it may, in many 
respects, prove to be such. Is this the spirit of republic- 
anism.'' . . . This, sir, is the language of democracy — 
that a majority of the community have a right to alter their 
government when found to be oppressive. But how differ- 
ent is the genius of your new Constitution from this ! How 
different from the sentiments of freemen, that a contempt- 
ible minority can prevent the good of the majority! 

Let us here call your attention to that part which gives 
the Congress power "to provide for organizing, arming, and 
discipling the militia, and for governing such part of them 
as may be employed in the service of the United States — 
reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the 
officers, and the authority of training the militia, according 
to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, sir, you 
see that their control over our last and best defense is un- 
limited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our 
militia, they will be useless: the States can do neither, this 
power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of 
appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is 
ridiculous; so that this pretended little remnant of power 
left to the States may, at the pleasure of Congress, be ren- 
dered nugatory. Our situation will be deplorable indeed: 
nor can we ever expect to get this government amended; 
since I have already shown that a very small minority may 



On the Federal Constitution 75 

prevent it, and that small minority interested in the continu- 
ance of the oppression. Will the oppressor let go the op- 
pressed? Was there ever an instance? Can the annals of 
mankind exhibit one single example where rulers, over- 
charged with power, willingh' let go the oppressed, though 
solicited and requested most earnestly ? The application for 
amendments will therefore be fruitless. Sometimes the op- 
pressed have got loose by one of those bloody struggles 
that desolate a country ; but a willing relinquishment of 
power is one of those things which hiunan nature never was, 
nor ever will be, capable of. 

The honorable gentleman's observations respecting the 
people's right of being the agents in the formation of this 
government, are not accurate, in my humble conception. 
The distinction between a national government and a con- 
federacy is not sufficiently discerned. Had the delegates, 
who were sent to Philadelphia, a power to jjropose a con- 
solidated government instead of a confederacy? Were they 
not deputed by States, and not by the people? The assent 
of the people, in their collective capacity, is not necessary 
to the formation of a federal government. The people have 
no right to enter into leagues, alliances, or confederations : 
they are not the proper agents for this purpose. States and 
sovereign powers are the only proper agents for this kind 
of government. Show me an instance where the people have 
exercised this business. Has it not always gone through the 
legislatures ? I refer you to the treaties with France, Hol- 
land, and other nations. How were they made? Were they 
not made by the States ? Are the people, therefore, in their 
aggregate capacity, the proper persons to form a confeder- 
acy? This, therefore, ought to depend on the consent of the 
legislatures, the people having never sent delegates to make 
any proposition of changing the government. Yet I must say, 
at the same time, that it was made on the ground the most 
pure; and perhaps I might have been brought to consent to 
it, so far as to the change of government. But there is one 
thing in it which I never woxild acquiesce in. I mean, the 



76 Patrick Henry 

changing it into a consolidated government, which is so ab- 
horrent to my mind. 

If we admit this consolidated government, it will 
be because we like a great and splendid one. Some way or 
other we must be a great and mighty empire : we must have 
an army, and a navy, and a number of things. When the 
American spirit was in its youth, the language of America 
was different : liberty, sir, was then the ])rimary object. 
We are descended from a people whose government was 
foimded on liberty: our glorious forefathers of Great Brit- 
ain made liberty the foundation of everj'thing. That country 
is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because 
their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because 
liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit 
of liberty from our British ancestors : by that spirit we have 
triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American 
spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is 
about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty 
empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to 
become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of 
America, your government will not have sufficient energy to 
keep them together. Such a government is incompatible 
with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, 
no real balances, in this government. What can avail your 
specious, imaginary balances; your rope-dancing, chain- 
rattling, ridiculous, ideal checks and contrivances.'' But, 
sir, we are not feared by foreigners: we do not make na- 
tions tremble. AVould this constitute happiness, or secure 
liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever di- 
rect its operations to the security of those objects. . . . 
When I thus profess myself an advocate for the liberty 
of the people, I shall be told I am a designing man, that I 
am to be a great man, that I am to be a demagogue; and 
many similar illiberal insinuations will be thrown out: but, 
sir, conscious rectitude outweighs these things with me. I 
see great jeopardy in this new government: I see none from 
our present one. I hope some gentleman or other will bring 



On the Federal Constitution 77 

forth, in full array, those dangers, if there be any, that we 
may see and touch them. 

I have said that I thought this a consolidated govern- 
ment : I will now prove it. Will the great rights of the peo- 
ple be secured by this government? Suppose it should 
prove oppressive ; how can it be altered ? Our Bill of Rights 
declares, "that a majority of the community hath an in- 
dubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, 
alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most 
conducive to the public weal." I have just proved, that 
one-tenth, or less, of the people of America — a most despi- 
cable minority — may prevent this reform, or alteration. 
Suppose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their 
government; can a majority of them do it.^ No, because 
they are connected with other men; or, in other words, con- 
solidated with other States. When the people of Virginia, 
at a future day, shall wish to alter their government, though 
they should be unanimous in this desire^ yet they may be 
prevented therefrom by a despicable minority at the ex- 
tremity of the United States. The founders of your own 
constitution made your government changeable; but the 
power of changing it is gone from you ! W^hither is it gone? 
It is placed in the same hands that hold the rights of twelve 
other States ; and those who hold those rights have right 
and power to keep them. It is not the particular govern- 
ment of Virginia ; one of the leading features of that gov- 
ernment is, that a majority can alter it, when necessary for 
the public good. This government is not a Virginian, but 
an American government. Is it not therefore a consoli- 
dated government ? The sixth clause of your Bill of Rights 
tells you, "that elections of members to serve as representa- 
tives of the people in assembly, ought to be free, and that 
all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common in- 
terest with and attachment to the community, have the right 
of suffrage, and can not be tarred or deprived of their prop- 
erty for public uses, without their own consent, or that of 
their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law ta 



78 Patrick Henry 

whicli they have not in like manner assented for the public 
good." But what does this Constitution say? The clause 
under consideration gives an unlimited and unbounded 
power of taxation. Suppose every delegate from Virginia 
opposes a law laying a tax ; what will it avail } They are op- 
posed by a majority: eleven members can destroy their ef- 
forts: tliose feeble ten cannot prevent the passing the most 
oppressive tax-law; so that^ in direct opposition to the spirit 
and express language of your declaration of rights, you are 
taxed, not by your own consent, but by people who have 
no connection with you. 

This Constitution can counteract and suspend 
any of our laws, that contravene its oppressive operation; 
for they have the power of direct taxation, which suspends 
our Bill of Rights ; and it is expressly provided, that they 
can make all laws necessary for carrying their powers into 
execution ; and it is declared paramount to the laws and con- 
stitutions of the States. Consider how the only remaining 
defense we have left is destroyed in this manner. Besides 
the expenses of maintaining the Senate and other house in 
as much splendor as they please, there is to be a great and 
mighty President, with very extensive powers — the powers 
of a king. He is to be supported in extravagant magnifi- 
cence; so that the whole of our property may be taken by 
this American government, by laying what taxes they please, 
giving themselves what salaries they please, and suspending 
our laws at their pleasure. I might be thought too inquisi- 
tive, but I believe I should take up but very little of your 
time in enumerating the little power that is left to the gov- 
ernment of Virginia; for this power is reduced to little or 
nothing. Their garrisons, magazines, arsenals, and forts, 
which will be situated in the strongest places within the 
States, — their ten miles square, with all the fine ornaments 
of human life, added to their powers, and taken from the 
States, will reduce the power of the latter to nothing. 

The voice of tradition, I trust, will inform posterity of 
our struggles for freedom. If our descendants be worthy 



On the Federal Constitution 79 

the name of Americans, they will preserve and hand down 
to their latest posterity the transactions of the present 
times ; and though I confess my exclamations are not worthy 
the hearing, they will see that I have done my utmost to 
preserve their liberty ; for I never will give up the power 
of direct taxation, but for a scourge. I am willing to give 
it conditionally; that is, after non-compliance with requisi- 
tions. I will do more, sir, and what I hope will convince 
the most skeptical man, that I am a lover of the American 
Union, — that in case Virginia shall not make punctual pay- 
ment, the control of our custom houses, and the whole regu- 
lation of trade, shall be given to Congress, and that Virginia 
shall depend on Congress even for passports, till Virginia 
shall have paid the last farthing and furnished the last 
soldier. Nay, sir, there is another alternative to which I 
would consent; — even that they should strike us out of 
the Union, take away from us all federal privileges, till 
we comply with federal requisitions ; but let it depend upon 
our own pleasure to pay our money in the most easy man- 
ner for our people. Were all the States, more terrible than 
the mother country, to join against us, I hope Virginia could 
defend herself; but, sir, the dissolution of the Union is 
most abhorrent to my mind. The first thing I have at heart 
is American liberty; the second thing is American union; 
and I hope the people of Virginia will endeavor to preserve 
that union. The increasing population of the Southern 
States is far greater than that of New England; conse- 
quently, in a short time, they will be far more numerous 
than the people of that country. Consider that, and you will 
find this State more particularly interested to support 
American liberty, and not bind our posterity by an im- 
provident relinquishment of our rights. I would give the 
best security for a punctual compliance with requisitions ; 
but I beseech gentlemen, at all hazards, not to grant this 
unlimited power of taxation. 

The honorable gentleman has told us that these powers, 
given to Congress, are accompaanied by a judiciary which 



8o Patrick Henry 

will correct all. On examination, you will find this very 
judiciary oppressively constructed, your jury trial destroy- 
ed, and the judges dependent on Congress. In this scheme 
of energetic government, the people will find two sets of tax 
gatherers — the State and the Federal sheriffs. This, it 
seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppression as the 
people cannot possibly bear. The Federal sheriff may 
commit what oppression, make what distresses, he pleases, 
and ruin you with impunity; for how are you to tie his 
hands ? Have you any sufficient decided means of prevent- 
ing him from sucking your blood by speculations, commis- 
sions, and fees ? Thus thousands of your people will be 
most shamefully robbed. Our State sheriffs, those unfeel- 
ing blood-suckers, have under the watchful eye of our leg- 
islature committed the most horrid and barbarous ravages 
on our people. It has required the most constant vigilance 
of the legislature to keep them from totally ruining the 
people. A repeated succession of laws has been made, to 
sup23rcss their iniquitous speculations and cruel extortions; 
and as often has their nefarious ingenuity devised methods 
of evading the force of those laws : in the struggle, they 
have generally triumphed over the legislature. It is a fact, 
that lands have sold for five shillings, which were worth one 
hundred pounds. If sheriffs, thus immediately under the 
eye of our State legislature and judiciary, have dared to 
commit these outrages, what would they not have done if 
their masters had been at Philadelphia or New York? If 
they perpetrate the most unwarrantable outrage on your 
persons or property, you can not get redress on this side of 
Philadelphia or New York; and how can you get it there .^ 
If your domestic avocations could permit you to go thither, 
there you must appeal to judges sworn to support this Con- 
stitution in opposition to that of any State, and who may 
also be inclined to favor their own officers. When these 
harpies are aided by excisemen, who may search, at any 
time, your houses and most secret recesses, will the people 
bear it? If vou think so, vou differ from me. Where I 



On the Federal Constitution 8i 

thought there was a possibility of such mischiefs^ I would 
grant power with a niggardly hand; and here there is a 
strong probability that these oppressions shall actually hap- 
pen. I may be told, that it is safe to err on that side, because 
such regulations may be made by Congress as shall restrain 
these officers^ and because laws are made by our representa- 
tives, and judged by righteous judges; but, sir, as these 
regulations may be made, so they may not; and many rea- 
sons there are to induce a belief that they will not. I shall 
therefore be an infidel on that point till the day of my death. 

The Constitution is said to have beautiful features ; but 
when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to 
me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an 
awful squinting; it squints toward monarchy: and does not 
this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? 
Your President may easily become king. Your Senate is 
so imperfectly constructed that 3^our dearest rights may be 
sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very 
small minority may continue forever unchangeably this 
government, although horridly defective. Where are your 
checks in this government? Your strongholds will be in the 
hands of your enemies. It is on a supposition that your 
American governors shall be honest that all the good quali- 
ties of this government are founded; but its defective and 
imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetuate 
the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men. 

If your American chief be a man of ambition and abili- 
ties, how easy will it be for him to render himself absolute ! 
The army is in his hands, and if he be a man of address it 
will be attached to him; and it will be the subject of long 
meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to 
accomplish his design. And, sir, will the American spirit 
solely relieve you when this happens ? I would rather in- 
finitely — and I am sure most of this convention are of the 
same opinion — have a king, lords, and commons, than a 
government so replete with such insupportable evils. If 
we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he 



82 Patrick Henry 

shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall 
prevent him from infringing them ; but the President, in the 
field at the head of his. army, can prescribe the terms on 
which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any- 
American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke. 
I can not, with patience, think of this idea. If ever he vio- 
lates the laws, one of two things will happen : he will come 
at the head of his army to carry everything before him ; or 
he will give bail, or will do what Mr. Chief Justice will 
order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his 
crimes teach him to make one bold j^ush for the American 
throne? Will not the immense difference between being 
master of everything, and being ignominiously tried and 
punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push.'' 
Butj sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can 
he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition ? 
Away with your President: we shall have a king: the army 
will salute, him monarch : your militia will leave you, and 
assist in making him king, and fight against you: and what 
have you to oppose this force? What will then become of 
you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism 
ensue? 

What can be more defective than the clause concerning 
the elections ? The control given to Congress over the time, 
place, and manner of holding elections, will totally de- 
stroy the end of suffrage. The elections may be held at one 
place, and the most inconvenient in the State; or they may 
be at remote distances from those who have a right of suf- 
frage: hence nine out of ten must either not vote at 
all, or vote for strangers; for the most influential charac- 
ters will be applied to, to know who are the most proper to 
be chosen. I repeat, that the control of Congress over the 
manner, etc., of electing, well warrants this idea. The 
natural consequence will be, that this democratic branch 
will possess none of the public confidence; the people will 
be prejudiced against representatives chosen in such an in- 
judicious manner. The proceedings in the northern con- 



On the Federal Constitution 83 

clave will be hidden from the yeomanry of this country. We 
are told that the yeas and nays shall be taken and entered 
on the journal. This, sir, will avail nothing: it may be 
locked up in their chests, and concealed forever from the 
people; for they are not to publish what parts they think 
require secrecy: they may think, and will think, the whole 
requires it. 

Another beautiful feature of this Constitution is the 
publication, from time to time, of the receipts and expendi- 
tures of the public money. This expression, from time to 
time, is very indefinite and indeterminate: it may extend to 
a century. Grant that any of them are wicked; they may 
squander the public money so as to ruin you, and yet this 
expression will give you no redress. I say, they may ruin 
you; for where, sir, is the responsibility? The yeas and 
nays will show you nothing, unless they be fools as well 
as knaves ; for, after having wickedly trampled on the rights 
of the people, they would act like fools indeed were they to 
publish and divulge their iniquity, when they have it equally 
in their power to suppress and conceal it. Where is the re- 
sponsibility — that leading principle in the British govern- 
ment? In that government, a punishment, certain and in- 
evitable, is provided; but in this there is no real, actual 
punishment for the grossest mal-administration. They may 
go without punishment, thougli they commit the most out- 
rageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell 
me they will be punished. I ask. By what law? They 
must make the law, for there is no existing law to do it. 
What ! will they make a law to punish themselves ? 

This, sir, is my great objection to the Constitution, that 
there is no true responsibility, and that the preservation of 
our liberty depends on the single chance of men being vir- 
tuous enough to make laws to punish themselves. In the 
country from which we are descended, they have real, and 
not imaginary responsibility; for there mal-administration 
has cost their heads to some of the most saucy geniuses that 
ever were. The Senate, by making treaties, may destroy 



84 Patrick Henry 

your liberty and laws for want of responsibility. Two- 
thirds of those that shall happen to be present can, with 
the President, make treaties that shall be the supreme law 
of the land: they may make the most ruinous treaties, and 
yet there is no punishment for them. Whoever shows me 
a punishment provided for them will oblige me. 

So, sir, nothwithstanding there are eight pillars, they 
want another. Where will they make another.^ I trust, sir, 
the exclusion of the evils wherewith this system is replete, 
in its present form, will be made a condition precedent to 
its adoption, by this or any other State. The transition 
from a general unqualified admission to offices, to a consoli- 
dation of government, seems easy; for, though the Ameri- 
can States are dissimilar in their structure, this will assimi- 
late them. This, sir, is itself a strong consolidating fea- 
ture, and is not one of the least dangerous in that system. 
Nine States are sufficient to establish this government over 
those nine. Imagine that nine have come into it. Vir- 
ginia has certain scruples. Suppose she will consequently 
refuse to join with those States: may not they still continue 
in friendshijD and imion with her? If she sends her an- 
nual requisitions in dollars, do you think their stomachs 
will be so squeamish as to refuse her dollars ? Will they not 
accept her regiments? They would intimidate you into an 
inconsiderate adoption, and frighten you with ideal evils, 
and that the Union shall be dissolved. 'Tis a bugbear, sir: 
the fact is, sir, that the eight adopting States can hardly 
stand on their own legs. Public fame tells us, that the 
adopting States have already heart-burnings and animosity, 
and repent their precipitate hurry: this, sir, may occasion 
exceeding great miscliief. When I reflect on these and many 
other circumstances, I must think those States will be found 
to be in confederacy with us. If we pay our quota of money 
annually, and furnish our ratable number of men, when 
necessary, I can see no danger from a rejection. 

The history of Switzerland clearly proves, that we might 
be in amicable alliance with those States, without adopting 



On the Federal Constitution 85 

this Constitution. Switzerland is a confederacy^ consist- 
ing of dissimilar governments. This is an example which 
proves that governments of dissimilar structures may be 
confederated. That confederate republic has stood upwards 
of four hundred years ; and although several of the indi- 
vidual republics are democratic, and the rest aristocratic, 
no evil has resulted from this dii^similarity, for they have 
braved all the power of France and Germany during that 
long period. The Swiss spirit, sir, has kept them together: 
they have encountered and overcome immense difficulties 
with patience and fortitude. In the vicinity of powerful 
and ambitious monarchs, they have retained their inde- 
pendence, republican simplicity, and valor. . . . Look 
at the peasants of that country, and of France, and mark 
the difference. You will find the condition of the former 
far more desirable and comfortable. No matter whether 
a people be great, splendid, and powerful, if they enjoy 
freedom. The Turkish Grand Seignior, alongside of our 
President, would put us to disgrace; but we should be 
abundantly consoled for this disgrace, when our citizens 
have been put in contrast with the Turkish slave. 

The most valuable end of government is the liberty of 
the inhabitants. No possible advantages can compensate for 
the loss of this privilege. Show me the reason why the Amer- 
ican Union is to be dissolved. Who are those eight adopting 
States ? Are they averse to give us a little time to consider, 
before we conclude? Would such a disposition render a 
junction with them eligible; or is it the genius of that kind 
of government to precipitate people hastily into measures 
of the utmost importance, and grant no indulgence? If 
it be, sir, is it for us to accede to such a government? We 
have a right to have time to consider — we shall therefore 
insist upon it. Unless the government be amended, we can 
never accept it. The adopting States will doubtless accept 
our mone}^ and our regiments ; and what is to be the conse- 
quence, if we are disunited ? I believe that it is yet doubt- 
ful whether it is not proper to stand by a while, and see 



86 Patrick Henry 

the eff'ect of its adoption in other States. In forming a 
government, the utmost care should be taken to prevent its 
becoming oppressive; and this government is of such an in- 
tricate and complicated nature, that no man on this earth 
can know its real operation. The other States have no 
reason to think, from the antecedent conduct of Virginia, 
that she has any intention of seceding from the Union, or 
of being less active to support the general welfare. Would 
they not, therefore, acquiesce in our taking time to deliber- 
ate — deliberate whether the measure be not perilous, not 
only for us, but the adopting States.^ 

Permit me, sir, to say, that a great majority of the peo- 
ple, even in the adopting States, are averse to this govern- 
ment. I believe I would be right to say, that they have 
been egregiously misled. Pennsylvania has perhaps been 
tricked into it. If the other States who have adopted it 
have not been tricked, still they were too much hurried into 
its adoption. There were very respectable minorities in 
several of them; and if reports be true a clear majority of 
the people are averse to it. If we also accede, and it 
should prove grievous, the peace and prosperity of our 
country, which we all love, will be destroyed. This gov- 
ernment has not the affection of the people at present. 
Should it be oppressive, their affection will be totally es- 
tranged from it; and, sir, you know that a government, 
without their affections, can neither be durable nor happy. 
I speak as one poor individual; but when I speak, I speak 
the language of thousands. But, sir, I mean not to breathe 
the spirit nor utter the language of secession. 

I have trespassed so long on your patience, I am really 
concerned that I have something yet to say. The honor- 
able member has said that we shall be properly represented. 
Remember, sir, that the number of our representatives is 
but ten, whereof six are a majority. Will those men be 
possessed of sufficient information? A particular knowl- 
edge of particular districts will not suffice. They must be 
well acquainted with agriculture, commerce, and a great 



On the Federal Constitution 87 

variety of other matters throughout the continent; they 
must know not only the actual state of nations in Europe 
and America, the situation of their farmers, cottagers, and 
mechanics, but also the relative situation and intercourse of 
those nations. Virginia is as large as England. Our pro- 
portion of representatives is but ten men. In England, 
they have five hundred and thirty. The House of Commons 
in England, numerous as thej^ are, we are told, is bribed, 
and have bartered away the rights of their constituents. 
What then shall become of us ? Will these few protect oiir 
rights.^ Will they be incorruptible?" You say they will be 
better men than the English commoners. I say they will 
be infinitely worse men, because they are to be chosen 
blindfolded: their election (the term, as applied to their 
appointment, is inaccurate) will be an involuntary nomi- 
nation, and not a choice. 

I have, I fear, fatigued the committee, yet I have not 
said the one hundred thousandth part of what I have on 
my mind, and wish to impart. On this occasion, I con- 
ceived myself bound to attend strictly to the interest of the 
State; and I thought her dearest rights at sake. Having 
lived so long — been so much honored — my efforts, though 
small, are due to my country. I have found my mind hur- 
ried on from subject to subject, on this very great occasion. 
We have all been out of order, from the gentleman who 
opened to-day, to myself. I did not come prepared to 
speak on so multifarious a subject, in so general a manner. 
I trust you will indulge me another time. Before you 
abandon the present system, I hope you will consider not 
only its defects, most maturely, but likewise those of that 
which you are to substitute for it. May you be fully ap- 
prised of the dangers of the latter, not by fatal experience, 
but by some abler advocate than I ! 



8. JAMES MADISON, of Virginia.— FOR THE FED- 
ERAL CONSTITUTION 

(In the Virginia Convention, at Richmond, June 5, 1788.) 

Patrick Henry was answered in the Virginia Convention 
by several men, but by none whose fame as a constitutional 
thinker and writer ranks higher than that of James Madi- 
son. None did more than he to bring about the Federal 
Convention at Philadelphia, and none more to bring its 
labors to a successful conclusion; and now in the Virginia 
Convention no one was so carefully able in exposition of 
the new Constitution, so minutely unwearying in refutation 
of the arguments of its opponents. In all Madison spoke 
some twenty-four times, eight of his speeches being of con- 
siderable length. 

The speech given below was delivered June 5th, the 
date of Henry's speech, and immediately followed an able 
and eloquent address by Governor Edmund Randolph, in 
which, in spite of the fact that he had refused to sign 
the Constitution in the Convention at Philadelphia, Ran- 
dolph now advocated its adoption. Madison spoke in a 
low tone, and at the beginning the reporter states that he 
was unable to hear him distinctly. The text of the speech 
here followed is that in Elliott's Debates. 

James Madison. Born in Virginia, 1751; graduated from the College of New 
Jersey (Princeton), 1771; served in tlie Virginia legislature, 1776, 178-1, 1785, 1786, 
and 1797; member of Congress, 1779; of the Annapolis Convention, 1786; of the 
Federal Convention, 1787; joint author Mitli Hamilton and Jay of "The Feder- 
alist," 1787-88; member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-96, where he op- 
posed Federalist measures; Secretaryof State, 1801-9; President, 1809-17; died, 1836. 



On the Federal Constitution 89 

[James Madison, in the Virg:inia Convention, at Richmond, June 5. 17S8.] 

MR. Chairman : I shall not attempt to make im- 
pressions by any ardent professions of zeal for the 
public welfare. We know the principles of every 
man will and ought to be judged, not by his professions 
and declarations, but by his conduct. By that criterion I 
mean, in common with every other member, to be judged; 
and should it prove unfavorable to my reputation, yet it is 
a criterion from which I will by no means depart. Com- 
parisons have been made between the friends of this Con- 
stitution and those who oppose it. Although I disapprove of 
such comparisons, I trust that in truth, honor, candor and 
rectitude of motives, the friends of this system, here and in 
other States, are not inferior to its opponents. But profes- 
sions of attachment to the public good, and comparisons of 
parties, ought not to govern or influence us now. We ought, 
sir, to examine the Constitution on its own merits solely. Vv'e 
are to inquire whether it will promote the public happiness. 
Its aptitude to produce this desirable object ought to be, 
the exclusive subject of our researches. In this pursuit, we 
ought not to address our arguments to the feelings and 
passions, but to those understandings and judgments which 
were selected by the people of this country to decide this 
great question, by a calm and rational investigation. I hope 
that gentlemen, in displaying their abilities on this occa- 
sion, instead of giving opinions and making assertions, will 
condescend to prove and demonstrate, by a fair and regular 
discussion. It gives me pain to hear gentlemen continually 
distorting the natural construction of language ; for it is 
sufficient if any human production can stand a fair discus- 
sion. 

Before I proceed to make some additions to the reasons 
which have been adduced by my honorable friend over the 
way, I must take the liberty to make some observations on 
what was said by another gentleman [Mr. Henry]. He told 
us that this Constitution ought to be rejected, because it en- 
dangered the public liberty, in his opinion, in many in- 



90 James Madison 

stances. Give me leave to make one answer to that observa- 
tion : let the dangers which this system is supposed to be re- 
plete with, be clearly pointed out; if any dangerous and un- 
necessary powers be given to the general legislature, let 
them be plainly demonstrated, and let us not rest satisfied 
with general assertions of dangers without examination. If 
powers be necessary, apparent danger is not a sufficient 
reason against conceding them. He has suggested that li- 
centiousness has seldom jDroduced the lo:5S of liberty; but 
that the tyranny of rulers has almost always effected it. 
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there 
are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the 
people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in 
power, than by violent and sudden usurpations : but on a 
candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, 
violence, and abuse of power by the majority trampling on 
the rights of the minority, have produced factions and com- 
motions which, in republics, have more frequently than any 
other cause produced despotism. If we go over the whole 
history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their 
destruction to have generally resulted from those causes. If 
we consider the jDCculiar situation of the United States, and 
what are the sources of that diversity of sentiment which 
pervades its inhabitants, we shall find great danger to fear 
that the same causes may terminate here in the same fatal 
effects which they produced in those republics. This danger 
ought to be wisely guarded against. Perhaps, in the prog- 
ress of this discussion, it will appear that the only possible 
remedy for those evils, and means of preserving and pro- 
tecting the principles of republicanism, will be found in 
that very system which is now exclaimed against as the 
parent of oppression. 

I must confess I have not been able to find his usual con- 
sistency in the gentleman's argument on this occasion. He 
informs us that the people of this country are at perfect re- 
pose, that is, every man enjoys the fruits of his labor peace- 
ably and securely, and that every thing is in perfect tran- 



On the Federal Constitution 91 

quillity and safety. I wish sincerely, sir, this were true. If 
this be their happy situation, why has every State acknowl- 
edged the contrary ? Why were deputies from all the States 
sent to the general convention ? Why have complaints of na- 
tional and individual distresses been echoed and re-echoed 
throughout the continent ? Why has our general government 
been so shamefully disgraced, and our constitution vio- 
lated.'' Wherefore have laws been made to authorize a 
change, and wherefore are we now assembled here? A fed- 
eral government is formed for the protection of its indi- 
vidual members. Ours has attacked itself with impunity. 
Its authority has been disobeyed and despised. I think I 
perceive a glaring inconsistency in another of his argu- 
ments. He complains of this Constitution, because it re- 
quires the consent of at least three-fourths of the States to 
introduce amendments which shall be necessary for the hap- 
piness of the people. The assent of so many he urges as 
too great an obstacle to the admission of salutary amend- 
ments, which he strongly insists ought to be at the will of a 
bare majority: we hear this argument at the very moment 
we are called upon to assign reasons for proposing a con- 
stitution which puts it in the power of nine States to abolish 
the present inadequate, unsafe, and pernicious Confedera- 
tion ! In the first case, he asserts that a majority ought to 
have the power of altering the government, when found to 
be inadequate to the security of jjublic happiness. In the 
last case, he affirms that even three-fourths of the com- 
munity have not a right to alter a government, which ex- 
perience has proved to be subversive of national felicity; 
nay, that the most necessary and urgent alterations can not 
be made without the absolute unanimity of all the States ! 
Does not the thirteenth article of the Confederation ex- 
pressly require, that no alteration shall be made without the 
unanimous consent of all the States ? Could any thing in 
theory be more perniciousl}^ improvident and injudicious 
than this submission of the will of the majority to the most 
trifling minority? Have not experience and practice actu- 



92 James Madison 

ally manifested this theoretical inconvenience to be ex- 
tremely inpolitic? Let me mention one fact^ which I con- 
ceive must carry conviction to the mind of any one, — the 
smallest State in the Union has obstructed every attempt to 
reform the government; that little member has repeatedly 
disobeyed and counteracted the general authority ; nay, has 
even supplied the enemies of its country with provisions. 
Twelve States had agreed to certain improvements which 
were proposed, being thought absolutely necessary to pre- 
serve the existence of the general government; but as these 
improvements, though really indispensable, could not by 
the Confederation be introduced into it without the con- 
sent of every State, the refractory dissent of that little State 
prevented their adoption. The inconveniences resulting 
from this requisition of unanimous concurrence in altera- 
tions in the Confederation, must be known to every member 
in this convention; it is therefore needless to remind them 
of them. Is it not self-evident, that a trifling minority ought 
not to bind the majority? Would not foreign influence be 
exerted with facility over a small minority.'' Would the 
honorable gentleman agree to continue the most radical de- 
fects in the old system, because the petty State of Rhode 
Island would not agree to remove them.^ 

He next objects to the exclusive legislation over the dis- 
trict where the seat of the government may be fixed. Would 
he submit that the representatives of this State should carry 
on their deliberations under the control of any one member 
of the Union? If any State had the power of legislation 
over the place where Congress should, fix the general gov- 
ernment, this would impair the dignity and hazard the 
safety of Congress. If the safety of the Union were under 
the control of any particular State, would not foreign cor- 
rujition probably prevail in such a State, to induce it to ex- 
ert its controlling influence over the members of the general 
government? Gentlemen can not have forgotten the dis- 
graceful insult which Congress received some years ago 
[in 178.'>, when some eighty mutinous soldiers drove Con- 



On the Federal Constitution 93 

gress from Philadelphia]. When we also reflect, that the 
previous cession of particular States is necessary before 
Congress can legislate exclusively anywhere^, we must, in- 
stead of being alarmed at this part, heartily approve of it. 

But the honorable member sees great danger in the provi- 
sion concerning the militia. This I conceive to be an addi- 
tional security to our liberties, without diminishing the 
power of the States in any considerable degree; it appears 
to m-e so highly expedient, that I should imagine it would 
have found advocates even in the warmest friends of the 
present system. The authority of training the militia and 
appointing the officers is reserved to the States. Congress 
ought to have the power of establishing a uniform system 
of discipline throughout the States; and to provide for the 
execution of the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel in- 
vasions. These are the only cases wherein they can inter- 
fere with the militia ; and the obvious necessity of their hav- 
ing power over them in these cases, must convince any re- 
flecting mind. Without uniformity of discipline, military 
bodies would be incapable of action; without a general con- 
trolling power to call forth the strength of the Union to 
repel invasions, the country might be overrun, and con- 
quered by foreign enemies. Without such a power to sup- 
press insurrections, our liberties might be destroyed by do- 
mestic faction, and domestic tyranny be established. 

The honorable member then told us, that there was no 
instance of power once transferred being voluntarily re- 
nounced. Not to produce European examples, which may 
probably be done before the rising of this convention, have 
we not seen already in seven States (and probably in an 
eighth State), legislatures surrendering some of the most 
important powers they jjossessed ? But, sir, by this govern- 
ment, powers are not given to any particular set of men : 
they are in the hands of the people — delegated to their rep- 
resentatives chosen for short terms — to representatives 
responsible to the people, and whose situation is per- 
fectly similar to our own : — as long as this is the case, 



94 James Madison 

we have no danger to apprehend. When the gentleman 
called our recollection to the usual effects of the concession 
of powers, and imputed the loss of liberty generally to open 
tyranny, I wish he had gone on farther. Upon his review 
of history he would have found, that the loss of liberty 
very often resulted from factions and divisions; from local 
considerations, which eternally lead to quarrels: he would 
have found internal dissensions to have more frequently de- 
molished civil liberty, than a tenacious disposition in rulers 
to retain any stipulated powers. . . . 

The power of raising and supporting armies is exclaimed 
against, as dangerous and unnecessary. I sincerely wish 
that there were no necessity for vesting this power in the 
general government. But suppose a foreign nation to de- 
clare war against. the United States, must not the general 
legislature have the power of defending the United States ? 
Ought it to be known to foreign nations that the general 
government of the United States of America has no power 
to raise or support an army, even in the utmost danger, 
when attacked by external enemies .^ Would not their knowl- 
edge of such a circumstance stimulate them to fall upon us ? 
If, sir. Congress be not invested with this power, any 
powerful nation, prompted by ambition or avarice, will be 
invited by our weakness to attack us; and such an attack, 
by disciplined veterans, would certainly be attended with 
success, when only opposed by irregidar, undisciplined mi- 
litia. Whoever considers the peculiar situation of this coun- 
try, the multiplicity of its excellent inlets and harbors, and 
the uncommon facility of attacking it, however much he may 
regret the necessity of such a power, can not hesitate a mo- 
ment in granting it. One fact may elucidate this argument. 
In the course of the late war, when the weak parts of the 
Union were exposed, and many States were in the most de- 
plorable situation by the enemy's ravages, the assistance of 
foreign nations was thought so urgently necessary for our 
protection, that the relinquishment of territorial advantages 
was not deemed too great a sacrifice for the acquisition of 



On the Federal Constitution 95 

one ally. This expedient was admitted with great reluc- 
tance, even by those States who expected advantages from 
it. The crisis, however, at length arrived when it was judged 
necessary for the salvation of this country to make certain 
cessions to Spain; whether wisely, or otherwise, is not for 
me to say; but the fact was, that instructions were sent to 
our representative at the court of Spain, to empower him 
to enter into negotiations for that purpose. How it termi- 
nated is well known. This fact shows the extremities to 
which nations will recur in cases of imminent danger, and 
demonstrates the necessity of making ourselves more re- 
spectable. The necessity of making dangerous cessions, 
and of applying to foreign aid, ought to be excluded. 

The honorable member then told us, that there are heart- 
burnings in the adopting States, and that Virginia may, if 
she does not come into the measure, continue in amicable 
confederacy with the adopting States. I wish as seldom as 
possible to contradict the assertions of gentlemen ; but I can 
venture to affirm, without danger of being in an error, that 
there is the most conclusive evidence that the satisfaction of 
those States is increasing every day, and that, in that Stale 
where it was adopted only by a majority of nineteen [Mas- 
sachusetts], there is not one-fifth of the people dissatisfied. 
There are some reasons which induce us to conclude, that 
the grounds of proselytism extend everywhere ; its principles 
begin to be better understood; and the inflammatory vio- 
lence, wherewith it was opposed by designing, illiberal, and 
unthinking minds, begins to subside. I will not enumerate 
the causes from which, in my conception, the heart-burnings 
of a majority of its opposers have originated. Suffice it 
to say, that in all they were founded on a misconception of 
its nature and tendency. Had it been candidly examined 
and fairly discussed, I believe, sir, that but a very inconsid- 
erable minority of the people of the United States would 
have opposed it. 

With respect to the Swiss federation, which the honorable 
gentleman has proposed for our example, as far as histori- 



96 James Madison 

cal authority may be relied upon, we shall find their gov- 
ernment quite unworthy of our imitation. I am sure if the 
lionorable member had adverted to their history and govern- 
ment, he never would have quoted their example here. He 
would have found that, instead of respecting the rights of 
mankind, their government (at least of several of their 
cantons) is one of the vilest aristocracies that ever was in- 
stituted. The peasants of some of their cantons are more 
op23ressed and degraded than the subjects of any monarch 
of Europe; nay, almost as much so as those of any eastern 
despot. It is a novelty in politics, that from the worst of 
systems the happiest consequences should ensue. Their 
aristocratical rigor and the peculiarity of their situation 
have so long supported their union : without the closest al- 
liance and amity, dismemberment might follow ; their pow- 
erful and ambitious neighbors would immediately avail 
themselves of their least jarrings. As we are not circum- 
stanced like them, no conclusive precedent can be drawn 
from their situation. I trust the gentleman does not carry 
his idea so far as to recommend a separation from the 
adopting States. This government may secure our happi- 
ness ; this is at least as probable as that it shall be oppres- 
sive. If eight States have, from a persuasion of its policy 
and utility, adopted it, shall Virginia shrink from it, with- 
out a full conviction of its danger and inutility.'' I hope 
she will never shrink from any duty: I trust she will not 
determine without the most serious reflection and delibera- 
tion. 

I confess to you, sir, were uniformity of religion to be 
introduced by this system, it would, in my opinion, be in- 
eligible; but I have no reason to conclude that uniformity 
of government will produce that of religion. This subject 
is, for the honor of America, perfectly free and unshackled. 
The government has no jurisdiction over it; the least re- 
flection will convince us there is no danger to be feared on 
this ground. 

But we are flattered with the probability of obtaining 



On the Federal Constitution 97 

previous amendments. This calls for the most serious at- 
tention of this house. If amendments are to be proposed by 
one State, other States have the same right, and will also 
propose alterations. These can not but be dissimilar and 
opposite in their nature. I beg leave to remark, that the 
governments of the different States are in many respects 
dissimilar in their structure ; their legislative bodies are not 
similar; their executives are more different. In several of 
the States, the first magistrate is elected by the people at 
large; in others, by joint ballot of the members of both 
branches of the legislature ; and in others in other different 
manners. This dissimilarity has occasioned a diversity of 
opinion on the theory of government, which will, without 
many reciprocal concessions, render a concurrence impos- 
sible. Although the appointment of an executive magistrate 
has not been thought destructive to the principles of democ- 
racy in many [ .^any] of the States, yet, in the course of the 
debate, we find objections made to the Federal executive; it 
is urged that the President will degenerate into a tyrant. I 
intended, in compliance with the call of the honorable mem- 
ber, to exjDlain the reasons of proposing this constitution, 
and develop its principles; but I shall postpone my re- 
marks till we hear the supplement which lie has informed 
us he intends to add to what he has already said. 

Give me leave to say something of the nature of the gov- 
ernment, and to show that it is safe and just to vest it with 
the power of taxation. There are a number of opinions ; 
but the principal question is, whether it be a federal or 
consolidated government. In order to judge properly of 
the question before us, we must consider it minutely in its 
principal parts. I conceive myself that it is of a mixed 
nature ; it is in a manner unprecedented ; we can not find one 
express example in the experience of the world. It stands 
by itself. In some respects it is a government of a fed- 
eral nature ; in others it is of a consolidated nature. Even 
if we attend to the manner in which the Constitution is in- 
vestigated, ratified, and made the act of the people of 



98 James Madison 

America, I can say, notwithstanding what the honorable 
gentleman has alleged, that this government is not com- 
pletely consolidated nor is it entirely federal. Who are the 
parties to it? The people — but not the people as compos- 
ing one great body; but the people as composing thirteen 
sovereignties. Were it, as the gentleman asserts, a consoli- 
dated government, the assent of a majority of the people 
would be sufficient for its establishment, and as a majority 
have adopted it already, the remaining ' States would be 
bound by the act of the majority, even if they unanimously 
reprobated it. Were it such a government as is suggested, 
it would be now binding on the people of this State, without 
having liad t)ie privilege of deliberating upon it; but, sir, 
no State is bound by it, as it is, without its own consent. 
Should all the States adopt it, it will be then a government 
established by the thirteen States of America, not through 
the intervention of the legislatures, but by the people at 
large. In this particular respect, the distinction between 
the existing and proposed governments is very material. 
The existing system has been derived from the dependent, 
derivative authority of the legislatures of the States ; where- 
as this is derived from the superior power of the people. 
If we look at the manner in which alterations are to be 
made in it, the same idea is in some degree attended to. 
By the new system, a majority of the States can not intro- 
duce amendments ; nor are all the States required for that 
purjiose ; three-fourths of them must concur in alterations : 
in this there is a departure from the federal idea. The 
members to the national House of Representatives are to 
be chosen by the people at large, in proportion to the num- 
bers in the respective districts. When we come to the Sen- 
ate, its members are elected by the States in their equal and 
political capacity ; but had the government been completely 
consolidated, the Senate would have been chosen by the 
j)eople, in their individual capacity, in the same manner as 
the members of the other House. Thus, it is of a compli- 
cated nature, and this complication, I trust, will be found to 



On the Federal Constitution 99 

exclude the evils of absolute consolidation^ as well as of a 
mere confederacy. If Virginia was separated from all the 
States, her power and authority would extend to all cases; 
in like manner, were all powers vested in the general gov- 
ernment, it would be a consolidated government: but the 
powers of the Federal government are enumerated; it can 
only operate in certain cases : it has legislative powers on 
defined and limited objects, beyond which it can not extend 
its jurisdiction. 

But the honorable member has satirized with peculiar 
acrimony the powers given to the general government by 
this Constitution. I conceive that the first question on this 
subject is, whether these powers be necessary; if they be, 
we are reduced to the dilemma of either submitting to the 
inconvenience, or losing the Union. Let us consider the 
most important of these reprobated powers ; that of direct 
taxation is most generally objected to. With respect to 
the exigencies of government, there is no question but the 
most easy mode of providing for them will be adopted. 
When, therefore, direct taxes are not necessary, they will 
not be recurred to. It can be of little advantage to those 
in poAver to raise money in a manner oppressive to the peo- 
ple. To consult the conveniences of the people will cost 
them nothing, and in many respects will be advantageous 
to them. Direct taxes will only be recurred to for great 
purposes. What has brought on other nations those im- 
mense debts, under the pressure of which many of them 
labor .f* Not the expenses of their governments, but war. 
If this country should be engaged in war (and I conceive 
we ought to provide for the possibility of such a case), how 
would it be carried on ? By the usual means provided from 
year to year? As our imports will be necessary for the ex- 
penses of government, and other common exigencies, how 
are we to carry on the means of defense.^ How is it pos- 
sible a war could be supported without money or credit? 
And would it be possible for government to have credit, 
without having the power of raising money? No, it would 



loo James Madison 

be impossible for any government^ in such a case, to de- 
fend itself. Then, I say, sir, that it is necessary to estab- 
lish funds for extraordinary exigencies, and give this pow- 
er to the general go\'ernment; for the utter inutility of 
previous requisitions on the States is too well known. Would 
it be possible for those countries, whose finances and reve- 
nues are carried to the highest perfection, to carry on the 
operations of government on great emergencies, such as the 
maintenance of a war, without an uncontrolled power of 
raising money.'' Has it not been necessary for Great Brit- 
ain, notwithstanding the facility of the collection of her 
taxes, to have recourse verj'^ often to this and other extra- 
ordinary methods of procuring money? Would not her 
public credit have been ruined, if it was known that her 
power to raise money was limited.'' Has not France been 
obliged, on great occasions, to use unusual means to raise 
funds.'' It has been the case in many countries, and no 
government can exist unless its powers extend to make 
provisions for every contingency. If we were actually at- 
tacked by a powerful nation, and our general government 
had not the power of raising money, but depended solely 
on requisitions, our condition would be truh' deplorable: 
if the revenues of this commonwealth were to depend on 
twenty distinct authorities, it would be impossible for it 
to carry on its operations. This must be obvious to every 
member here: I think, therefore, that it is necessary for the 
preservation of the Union that this power should be given 
to the general government. 

But it is urged, that its consolidated nature, joined to 
the power of direct taxation, will give it a tendency to de- 
stroy all subordinate authority; that its increasing influence 
will speedily enable it to absorb the State governments. I 
can not think this will be the case. If the general govern- 
ment were wholly independent of the governments of the 
particular States, then indeed usurpation might be ex- 
pected to the fullest extent: but, sir, on whom does this 
general government depend? It derives its authority from 



On the Federal Constitution loi 

these governments, and from the same sources from which 
their authority is derived. The members of the Federal 
government are taken from the same men from whom 
those of the State legislatures are taken. If we consider 
the mode in which the Federal representatives will be 
chosen, we shall be convinced that the general will never 
destroy the individual governments ; and this conviction 
must be strengthened by an attention to the construction of 
the Senate. The representatives will be chosen, probably, 
under the influence of the members of the State legisla- 
tures : but there is not the least probability that the elec- 
tion of the latter will be influenced by the former. One 
hundred and sixty members represent this commonwealth 
[Virginia] in one branch of the legislature, are drawn 
from the people at large, and must ever possess more in- 
fluence than the few men who will be elected to the gen- 
eral legislature. . . . Those who wish to become Fed- 
eral representatives, must depend on their credit with that 
class of men who will be the most popular in their counties, 
who generally represent the people in the State govern- 
ment: they can, therefore, never succeed in any measure 
contrary to the wishes of those on whom they depend. It 
is almost certain, therefore, that the deliberations of the 
members of the Federal House of Representatives will be 
directed to the interest of the people of America. As to the 
other branch, the Senators will be appointed by the legisla- 
tures, and though elected for six years, I do not conceive 
they will soon forget the source from whence they derive 
their political existence. This election of one branch of 
the Federal by the State legislatures, secures an absolute 
dependence of the former on the latter. The biennial ex- 
clusion of one-third, will lessen the facility of a combina- 
tion, and may put a stop to intrigues. I appeal to our past 
experience, whether they will attend to the interests of their 
constituent States. Have not those gentlemen who have 
been honored with seats in Congress, often signalised them- 
selves by their attachment to their seats'? I wish this gov- 



I02 James Madison 

ernment may answer the expectation of its friends, and 
foil the apprehensions of its enemies. I hope the patriotism 
of the people will continue, and be a sufficient guard to 
their liberties. I believe its tendency will be, that the State 
governments will counteract the general interest, and ulti- 
mately prevail. The number of the representatives is yet 
sufficient for our safety, and will gradually increase; and 
if we consider their different sources of information, the 
number will not appear too small. 



9. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, of New York.— FOR 
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 

(In the New York Convention, at Poughkeepaie, June 20, 1788.) 

Because of its geographical position, separating the New 
England States from those south of it, the action of New 
York on the Constitution was of prime importance. Against 
the new plan Governor George Clinton directed "all the 
weight of his official influence, every local prejudice and 
interest." The legislature passed the resolution for a State 
convention by only three votes, and the date set for its 
meeting was the remote one of July 17, 1788. Pending the 
assemblying of the convention, a committee of "Federal 
Republicans" sought unsuccessfully to unite the opposition 
in the different States in support of the same amendments, 
with a view to the revision of the Constitution by a sec- 
ond Federal Convention. (Leake, Life of John Lamb, p. 
306 ff.) Of the delegates chosen to the State convention, 
46 were chosen by the party hostile to the Constitution, and 
19 by its friends. Robert Yates and John Lansing, who 
had attended and deserted the Philadelphia Convention, 
were leaders on the anti-Federalist side in the New York 
Convention. Chief on the other side were Alexander Ham- 

Alexander Hamilton. Bom in the British West Indies, 1757; came to 
America, 1772, where he attended Kingr's Collegre (Columbia University), New 
York City: enlisted in the Continental army, 1776; appointed on Washington's 
staflf, and became his principal and most confidential aide; admitted to the bar 
of the New York Supreme Court, 1782; served in Congress, 1782-83; member of 
the New York Assembly, 1786; of the Federal Convention, 1787; published "The 
Federalist" with Madison and Jay, 1787-88; member of New York ratifying con- 
vention, 1788; first Secretary of the U. S. Treasury, 1789-95; killed in duel with 
Aaron Burr. 1804. 

103 



I04 Alexander Hamilton 

ilton (who alone of the New York delegates had signed the 
Constitution), John Jay^ and Chancellor Livingston. 

In the debates, as in the press discussions preceding the 
convention, Hamilton was indisputably preeminent; he was 
"powerful in his reasoning, and so persuasively eloquent 
and pathetic that he drew tears from most of his audience." 
(Quoted by J. C. Hamilton, Histonj of the Republic, III, 
p. 521.) The news of New Hampshire's, and then of Vir- 
ginia's ratification, greatly aided the Federalists ; and New 
York's ratification was finally carried (July 26) by a vote of 
30 to 27, with the proposal of 32 amendments for the con- 
sideration of Congress. 

The reporter who took down the speeches in the Conven- 
tion was confessedly inexperienced, and the reports of 
Hamilton's speeches are "bald and inaccurate," — a defect 
shared with most reports of that day. The speech given 
below was delivered June 20th, while the subject of the 
representation in the lower house of Congress was under 
discussion. 



[Alexander Hamilton, in the New York Convention, at Poushkeepsia, 
.1 line 20, 17S8.1 

MR. Chairman : . . . No arguments drawn from 
embarrassment or inconvenience ought to prevail 
upon us to adopt a system of government radical- 
ly bad ; yet it is proper that these arguments, among others, 
should be brought into view. In doing this, yesterday, it 
was necessary to reflect upon our situation; to dwell upon 
the imbecility of our Union ; and to consider whether we, as 
a State, could stand alone. Although I am persuaded this 
Convention resolved to adopt nothing that is bad, yet I 
think every prudent man will consider the merits of the 
plan in connection with the circumstances of our country; 
and that a rejection of the Constitution may involve most 
fatal consequences. 



On the Federal Constitution 105 

Sir, it appears to me extraordinary that while gentlemen 
in one breath acknowledge that the old Confederation re- 
quires many material amendments, they should in the next 
deny that its defects have been the cause of our political 
weakness, and the consequent calamities of our country. I 
can not but infer from this, that there is still some lurking, 
favorite imagination, that this system, with corrections, 
might become a safe and permanent one. It is proper that 
we should examine this matter. We contend that the radical 
vice in the old Confederation is, that the laws of the Union 
apply only to States in their corporate capacity. Has not 
every man who has been in our legislature experienced the 
truth of this jDOsition ? It is inseparable from the disposi- 
tion of bodies who have a constitutional power of resistance, 
to examine the merits of a law. This has ever been the 
case with the Federal requisitions. In this examination, not 
being furnished with those lights which directed the de- 
liberations of the general government, and incapable of 
embracing the general interests of the Union, the States 
have almost uniformly weighed the requisitions by their 
own local interests, and have only executed them so far as 
answered their particular convenience or advantage. Hence 
there have ever been thirteen different bodies to judge of 
the measures of Congress — and the operations of govern- 
ment have been distracted by their taking different courses. 
Those which were to be benefited have complied with the 
requisitions ; others have totally disregarded them. Have 
not all of us been witnesses to the unhappy embarrassments 
which resulted from these proceedings ? Even during the 
late war, while the pressure of common danger connected 
strongly the bond of our Union, and incited to vigorous ex- 
ertions, we felt many distressing effects of the impotent 
system. How have we seen this State, though most ex- 
posed to the calamities of the war, complying, in an unex- 
ampled manner, with the Federal requisitions, and com- 
pelled by the delinquency of others to bear most unusual 
burdens. Of this truth, we have the most solemn proof 



io6 ■ Alexander Hamilton 

on our records. In 1779 and 1780, when the State, from 
the ravages of war, and from her great exertions to resist 
them, became weak, distressed, and forlorn, every man 
avowed tlie principle which Ave now contend for; that our 
misfortunes, in a great degree, proceeded from the want of 
vigor in the Continental government. These were our sen- 
timents wlien we did not speculate, but feel. We saw our 
weakness, and found ourselves its victims. Let us reflect 
that this may again, in all probability, be our situation. 
This is a weak State; and its relative station is dangerous. 
Your capital is accessible by land, and by sea is exposed 
to every daring invader; and on the northwest, you are 
open to the inroads of a powerful foreign nation. Indeed, 
this State from its situation will, in time of war, probably 
be the theatre of its operations. 

Gentlemen have said that the non-compliance of the 
States has been occasioned by their sufferings. This may 
in part be true. But has this State been delinquent.'* 
Amidst all our distresses, we have fully complied. If New 
York could comply wholly with the requisitions, is it not 
to be supposed that the other States could in part comply? 
Certainly every State in the Union might have executed 
them in some degree. But New Hampshire, who has not 
suff'ered at all, is totally delinquent; Nortli Carolina is 
totally delinquent. Many others have contributed in a very 
small proportion; and Pennsylvania and New York are the 
only States which have perfectly discharged their Federal 
duty. 

From the delinquency of those States who have suffered 
little by the war, we naturally conclude that they have 
made no efforts; and a knowledge of human nature will 
teach us that their ease and security have been a principal 
cause of their want of exertion. While danger is distant, 
its impression is weak, and while it affects only our neigh- 
bors, we have few motives to provide against it. Sir, if we 
have national objects to pursue, we must have national 
revenues. If you make requisitions and they are not com- 



On the Federal Constitution 107 

plied with^ what is to be done? It has been well observed, 
that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that 
was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be 
confined to a single State. This being the case, can we 
suppose it wise to hazard a civil war.^ Suppose Massa- 
chusetts, or any large State, should refuse, and Congress 
should attempt to compel them; would they not have in- 
fluence to procure assistance, especially from those States 
who are in the same situation as themselves.'' What picture 
does this idea present to our view.^ A complying State 
at war with a non-complying State : Congress marching 
the troops of one State into the bosom of another : this State 
collecting auxiliaries and forming perhaps a majority 
against its Federal head. Here is a nation at war with 
itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards 
a government which makes war and carnage the only means 
of supporting itself — a government that can exist only 
by the sword.'' Every such war must involve the innocent 
with the guilty. This single consideration should be suf- 
ficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a 
government. 

But can we believe tliat one State will ever suffer itself 
to be used as an instrument of coercion.'' The thing is a 
dream — it is impossible. Then we are brought to the dilem- 
ma: either a Federal standing army is to enforce the req- 
uisitions, or the Federal treasury is left without supplies, 
and the government without support. What, sir, is the 
cure for this great evil.^ Nothing, but to enable the na- 
tional laws to operate on individuals, in the same manner 
as those of the States do. This is the true reasoning of the 
subject, sir. The gentlemen appear to acknowledge its 
force; and yet while they yield to the principle, they seem 
to fear its application to the government. 

What then shall we do? Shall we take the old Confed- 
eration as the basis of a new system? Can this be the 
object of the gentlemen? Certainly not. Will any man 
who entertains a wish for the safety of his country, trust 



io8 Alexander Hamilton 

the sword and the purse with a single assembly organized 
on principles so defective — so rotten? Though we might 
give to such a government certain powers with safety, yet 
to give them the full and unlimited powers of taxation and 
the national forces, would be to establish a despotism; the 
definition of which is, a government in which all power is 
concentrated in a single body. To take the old Confed- 
eration and fashion it upon these principles, would be es- 
tablishing a power which would destroy t}\e liberties of the 
people. These considerations show clearly that a govern- 
ment totally different must be instituted. They had weight 
in the Convention which formed the new system. It was 
seen that the necessary powers were too great to be trusted 
to a single body: they therefore formed two branches, and 
divided the powers, that each might be a check upon the 
other. This was the result of their wisdom ; and I presume 
that every reasonable man will agree to it. The more this 
subject is explained, the more clear and convincing it will 
appear to every member of this body. The fundamental 
principle of the old Confederation is defective ; we must 
totall}^ eradicate and discard this principle before we can 
expect an efficient government. 

In order that the committee may understand clearly the 
principles on which the general convention acted, I think 
it necessary to explain some preliminary circumstances. 

Sir, the natural situation of this country seems to divide 
its interests into different classes. There are navigating 
and non-navigating States : the northern are properly the 
navigating States; the southern ajipear to possess neither 
the means nor the spirit of navigation. This difference of 
situation naturally produces a dissimilarity of interests and 
views respecting foreign commerce. It was the interest of 
the northern States, that there should be no restraints on 
their navigation, and tliat they should have full power, by 
a majority in Congress, to make commercial regulations in 
favor of their own, and in restrain of the navigation of for- 
eigners. The southern States wished to impose a restraint 



On the Federal Constitution 109 

on the northern, by requiring that two-thirds in Congress 
should be requisite to pass an act in regulation of com- 
merce : they were apprehensive that the restraints of a navi- 
gation law would discourage foreigners, and by obliging 
them to employ the shipping of the northern States, would 
probably enhance their freight. This being the case, they 
insisted strenuously on having this provision engrafted in 
the Constitution ; and the northern States were as anxious 
in opposing it. On the other hand, the small States, seeing 
themselves embraced by the Confederation upon equal terms, 
wished to retain the advantages which they already pos- 
sessed: the large States, on the contrary, thought it im- 
proper that Rhode Island and Delaware should enjo}^ an 
equal suffrage with themselves. P^rom these sources a deli- 
cate and difficult contest arose. It became necessary, there- 
fore, to compromise ; or the Convention must have dissolved 
without effecting anything. Would it have been wise and 
prudent in that body, in this critical situation, to have de- 
serted the country } No. Every man who hears me — 
every wise man in the United States — would have con- 
demned them. The Convention were obliged to appoint a 
committee for accommodation. In this committee the ar- 
rangement was formed as it now stands ; and their report 
was accepted. It was a delicate point; and it was neces- 
sary that all parties should be indulged. Gentlemen will 
see, that if there had not been unanimity, nothing could 
have been done: for the Convention had no power to estab- 
lish, but only to recommend a government. Any other sys- 
tem would have been impracticable. Let a convention be 
called to-morrow — let them meet twenty times ; nay, twen- 
ty thousand times: they will have the same difficulties to 
encounter; the same clashing interests to reconcile. 

But, dismissing these reflections, let us consider how far 
the arrangement is in itself entitled to the approbation of 
this body. We will examine it upon its own merits. 

The first thing objected to is that clause which allows 
a representation for three-fifths of the negroes. Much has 



no Alexander Hamilton 

been said of the impropriety of representing men who have 
no will of their own. Whether this be reasoning or dec- 
lamation I will not presume to say. It is the inifortunate 
situation of the southern States to have a great part of their 
population, as well as property, in blacks. The regulation 
complained of was one result of the spirit of accommoda- 
tion which governed the Convention, and without this in- 
dulgence no union could possibly have been formed. But, 
sir, considering some peculiar advantages which we derive 
from them, it is entirely just that they should be gratified. 
The southern States possess certain staples, tobacco, rice, 
indigo, etc., which must be capital objects in treaties of 
commerce with foreign nations, and the advantage which 
they necessarily procure in these treaties will be felt 
throughout all the States. But the justice of this plan will 
appear in another view. The best writers on government 
have held that representation should be compounded of 
persons and property. This rule has been adopted, as far 
as it could be, in the constitution of New York. It will, 
however, by no means be admitted that the slaves are con- 
sidered altogether as property. They are men, though de- 
graded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known 
to the miuiicipal laws of the States which they inhabit, as 
well as to the laws of nature. But rejDresentation and taxa- 
tion go together, and one uniform rule ought to apply to 
both. Would it be just to compute these slaves in the as- 
sessment of taxes, and discard them from the estimate in 
the apportionment of representatives.'' Would it be just to 
impose a singular burden without conferring some adequate 
advantage .'' 

Another circumstance ought to be considered. The rule 
we have been speaking of is a general rule, and applies to 
all the States. Now, you have a great number of people 
in your State which are not represented at all, and have 
no voice in your government; these will be included in the 
enumeration — not two-fifths nor three-fifths, but the whole. 
This proves that the advantages of the jjlan are not con- 



On the Federal Constitution 1 1 1 

fined to the southern States, but extend to other parts of the 
Union. 

I now proceed to consider the objection with regard to 
the number of representatives, as it now stands ; I am per- 
suaded the SA'^stem, in this respect, stands on a better foot- 
ing than the gentlemen imagine. 

It has been asserted that it will be in the power of Con- 
gress to reduce the number. I acknowledge that there are 
no direct words of prohibition. But I contend that the 
true and genuine construction of the clause gives Congress 
no power whatever to reduce the representation below the 
number as it now stands. Although they may limit, they 
can never diminish the number. One representative for 
every thirty thousand inhabitants is fixed as the standard 
of increase till, by the natural course of population, it 
shall become necessary to limit the ratio. Probably at 
present, were this standard to be immediately applied, the 
representation would considerably exceed sixty-five. In 
three years it would exceed one hundred. If I understand 
the gentlemen, they contend that the number may be en- 
larged, or may not. I admit that this is in the discretion of 
Congress, and I submit to the committee whether it be not 
necessary and proper. Still, I insist that an immediate 
limitation is not j^robable, nor was it in the contemplation 
of the Convention. But, sir, who will jjresume to say to 
what precise point the representation ought to be increased.^ 
This is a matter of opinion, and opinions are vastly dif- 
ferent upon the subject. A proof of this is drawn from 
the representations in the State legislatures. In Massa- 
chusetts the assembly consists of about three hundred; in 
South Carolina, of nearly one hundred; in New York there 
are sixty-five. It is observed generally that the number 
ought to be large ; let the gentlemen produce their criterion. 
I confess it is difficult for me to say what number may be 
said to be sufficiently large. On one hand it ought to be 
considered that a small number will act with more facility, 
system, and decision; on the other, that a large one may en- 



112 Alexander Hamilton 

hance the difficulty of corruption. The Congress is to con- 
sist, at first, of ninety-one members. This, to a reasonable 
man, may appear to be as near the proper medium as any 
number whatever, at least for the present. There is one 
source of increase, also, which does not depend upon the 
construction of the Constitution; it is the creation of new 
States. Vermont, Kentucky, and Franklin [eastern Ten- 
nessee, organized by secession from North Carolina in 
1781] will probably become independent: new members 
of the Union will also be formed from the unsettled tracts 
of western territory. These must be represented, and will 
all contribute to swell the Federal legislature. If the whole 
number in the United States be at present three millions, 
as is commonly supposed, according to the ratio of one for 
thirty thousand we shall have, on the first census, a hun- 
dred representatives. In ten years thirty more will be 
added, and in twenty-five years the number will double; 
then, sir, we shall have two hundred, if the increase goes 
on in the same proportion. The convention of Massa- 
chusetts, who made the same objection, have fixed upon 
this number as the point at which they chose to limit the 
representation. But can we pronounce with certainty that 
it will not be expedient to go beyond this number? We 
can not. Experience alone must determine. This matter 
may, with more safety, be left to the discretion of the leg- 
islature, as it will be the interest of the large and increasing 
States of Massachusetts, New York. Pennsylvania, etc., to 
augment the representation. Only Connecticut, Rhode 
Island, Delaware, and Maryland can be interested in limit- 
ing it. We may, therefore, safely calculate upon a grow- 
ing representation, according to the advance of population 
and the circumstances of the country. 

The State governments possess inherent advantages 
which will ever give them an influence and ascendency over 
the national government, and will forever preclude the 
possibility of Federal encroachments. That their liberties 
indeed can be subverted by the Federal head is repugnant 



On the Federal Constitution 113 

to every rule of political calculation. Is not this arrange- 
ment then^ sir^ a most wise and prudent one? Is not the 
present representation fully adequate to our present exigen- 
cies, and sufficient to answer all the purposes of the Union? 
I am persuaded that an examination of the objects of the 
Federal government will afford a conclusive answer. . . . 

[On the 21st Hamilton continued his remarks as fol- 
lows :] 

When I had the honor to address the committee yester- 
day, I gave a history of the circumstances which attended 
the Convention, when forming the plan before us. I en- 
deavored to point out to you the principles of accommoda- 
tion on which this arrangement was made, and to show that 
the contending interests of the States led them to establish 
the representation as it now stands. In the second place, 
I attempted to prove that, in point of number, the rei^resen- 
tation would be perfectly secure. Sir, no man agrees more 
perfectly than myself to the main principle for which the 
gentlemen contend. I agree that there should be a broad 
democratic branch in the national legislature. But tliis 
matter, sir, depends on circumstances. It is impossible, in 
the first instance, to be precise and exact with regard to 
the number, and it is equally impossible to determine to 
what point it may be proper in future to increase it. On 
this ground I am disposed to acquiesce. In my reasonings 
on the subject of government I rely more on the interests 
and opinions of men than on any speculative parchment pro- 
visions whatever. I have found that constitutions are more or 
less excellent as they are more or less agreeable to the natu- 
ral operation of things. I am therefore disposed not to dwell 
long on curious speculations or pay much attention to 
modes or forms, but to adopt a system whose principles 
have been sanctioned by experience, adapt it to the real 
state of our coiuitry, and depend on probable reasonings 
for its operation and result. I contend that sixty-five and 
twenty-six in two bodies afford perfect security in the 
present state of things, and that the regular progressive 



114 Alexander Hamilton 

enlargement, which was in the contemphxtion of the general 
Convention, will not leave an apprehension of danger in the 
most timid and suspicious mind. It will be the interest of 
the large States to increase the representation. This will 
be the standing instruction to their delegates. But, say 
the gentlemen, the members of Congress will be interested 
not to increase the number, as it will diminish their rela- 
tive influence. In all their reasoning upon the subject, 
there seems to be this fallacy: they suppose that the repre- 
sentative will have no motive of action, on the one side, but 
a sense of duty; or on the other, but corruption. They do 
not reflect that he is to return to the community; that he 
is dependent on the will of the people, and that it can not 
be his interest to oppose their wishes. Sir, the general sense 
of the people will regulate the conduct of their representa- 
tives. I admit that there are exceptions to this rule; there 
are certain conjunctures when it may be necessary and 
proper to disregard tlie opinions which the majority of the 
people have formed. But in the general course of things, 
the popular views, and even prejudices, will direct the ac- 
tions of the rulers. 

All governments, even the most despotic, depend in a 
great degree on opinion. In free republics it is most pe- 
culiarly the case. In these, the will of the people makes 
the essential princijile of the government; and the laws 
which control the community receive tlieir tone and spirit 
from the public Avishes. It is the fortunate situation of our 
country, that the minds of the people are exceedingly en- 
lightened and refined. Here then we may expect the laws 
to be proportionally agreeable to the standard of perfect 
policy ; and the wisdom of public measures to consist with 
the most intimate conformity between the views of the repre- 
sentative and his constituent. If the general voice of the 
people be for an increase, it must undoubtedly take place. 
They have it in their power to instruct their representa- 
tives; and the State legislatures, which appoint the Sena- 
tors, may enjoin it also upon them. Sir, if I believed that 



On the Federal Constitution 115 

the number would remain at sixty-five^ I confess I should 
give my vote for an amendment ; though in a different form 
from the one proposed. 

The amendment proposes a ratio of one for twenty thous- 
and. I would ask, by what rule or reasoning it is deter- 
mined that one man is a better representative for twenty 
than thirty thousand? At present we have three millions 
of people; in twenty-five years we shall have six millions; 
and in forty years, nine millions : and this is a short period, 
as it relates to the existence of States. Here, then, accord- 
ing to the ratio of one for thirty thousand, we shall have, 
in forty years, three hundred representatives. If this be 
true, and if this be a safe representation, why be dissatis- 
fied? Why embarrass the Constitution with amendments 
that are merely speculative and useless ? I agree with 
the gentleman, that a very small number might give some 
color for suspicion : I acknowledge that ten would be un- 
safe ; on the other hand, a thousand would be too numerous. 
But I ask him, why will not ninety-one be an adequate and 
safe representation ? This at present appears to be the 
proper medium. Besides, the President of the United 
States will be himself the rejDresentative of the people. 
From the competition that ever exists between the branches 
of the government, the President will be induced to tDrotect 
their rights, whenever they are invaded by either branch. 
On whatever side we view this subject, we discover various 
and powerful checks to the encroachment of Congress. 
The true and permanent interests of the members are op- 
posed to corrujotion: their number is vastly too large for 
easy combination : the rivalship between the houses will 
forever prove an insuperable obstacle : the people have an 
obvious and powerful protection in their State governments. 
Should anything dangerous be attempted, these bodies of 
perpetual observation will be capable of forming and con- 
ducting plans of regular opposition. Can we suppose the 
people's love of liberty will not, under the incitement of 
their legislative leaders, be roused into resistance, and the 



ii6 Alexander Hamilton 

madness of tyranny be extinguished at a blow ? Sir, the 
danger is too distant ; it is beyond all rational calculation. 

It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a 
pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most 
perfect government. Experience has proved that no posi- 
tion in politics is more false than this. The ancient de- 
mocracies in Avhich the people themselves deliberated never 
possessed one feature of good government. Their very 
character was tyranny ; their figure deformity. When they 
assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable 
mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for 
every enormity. In these assemblies, the enemies of the 
people brought forward their plans of ambition systemati- 
cally. They were opposed by iheir enemies of another 
party; and it became a matter of contingency, whether the 
people subjected themselves to be led blindly by one tyrant 
or by another. 

It was remarked yesterday that a numerous representa- 
tion was necessary to obtain the confidence of the people. 
This is not generally true. The confidence of the people 
will easily be gained by a good administration. This is 
the true touchstone. . . . The popular confidence de- 
pends on circumstances very distinct from considerations 
of number. Probably the public attachment is more strong- 
ly secured by a train of prosperous events, which are the 
result of wise deliberation and vigorous execution, and to 
which large bodies are much less competent than small ones. 
If the representative conducts with propriety, he will nec- 
essarily enjoy the good will of the constituent. It ap- 
pears then, if my reasoning be just, that the clause is per- 
fectly proper, upon the principles of the gentleman who 
contends for the amendment; as there is in it the greatest 
degree of present security, and a moral certainty of an 
increase equal to out utmost wishes. 

It has been further, by the gentlemen in opposition, ob- 
served that a large representation is necessary to under- 
stand the interests of the people. This principle is by no 



On the Federal Constitution 117 

means true, in the extent to which the gentlemen seem to 
carry it. I would ask. Why may not a man understand 
the interests of thirty as well as of twenty? The position 
appears to be made upon the unfounded presumption that 
all the interests of all parts of the community must be rep- 
resented. No idea is more erroneous than this. Only such 
interests are proper to be represented as are involved in the 
powers of the general government. These interests come 
completely under the observation of one or a few men; and 
the requisite information is by no means augmented in pro- 
portion to the increase of number. . . . But granting 
for a moment that this minute and local knowledge the 
gentlemen contend for is necessary, let us see if, under the 
new Constitution, it will not probably be found in the rep- 
resentation. The natural and proper mode of holding 
elections will be to divide the State into districts, in pro- 
portion to the number to be elected. This State will conse- 
quently be divided, at first, into six. One man from each 
district will probably possess all the knowledge gentlemen 
can desire. Are the senators of this State more ignorant 
of the interests of the people than the assembly? Have 
they not ever enj oyed their confidence as much ? Yet, in- 
stead of six districts, they are elected in four; and the 
chance of their being collected from the smaller divisions 
of the State consequently diminished. Their number is but 
twenty-four; and their powers are co-extensive with those 
of the assembly, and reach objects which are most dear to 
the people — life, liberty, and property. 

Sir, we hear constantly a great deal which is rather cal- 
culated to awake our passions, and create prejudices, than 
to conduct us to the truth, and teach us our real interests. 
I do not suppose tliis to be the design of the gentlemen. 
Why then are we told so often of an aristocracy ? For my 
part, I hardly know the meaning of this word as it is ap- 
plied. If all we hear be true, this government is really a 
very bad one. But who are the aristocracy among us ? 
Where do we find men elevated to a perpetual rank above 



ii8 Alexander Hamilton 

their fellow-citizens, and possessing powers entirely inde- 
pendent of them? The arguments of the gentlemen only- 
go to prove that there are men who are rich, men who are 
poor; some who are wise, and others who are not. That 
indeed every distinguished man is an aristocrat. This re- 
minds me of a description of the aristocrats I have seen in 
a late publication, styled The Federal Fanner [by Richard 
Henry Lee]. The author reckons in the aristocracy all 
governors of States, members of Congress, chief magis- 
trates, and all officers of the militia. This description, I 
presume to say, is ridiculous. The image is a phantom. 
Does the new government render a rich man more eligible 
than a poor one.'' No. It requires no such qualification. 
It is bottomed on the broad and equal principle of your 
State constitution. 

Sir, if the people have it in their option to elect their 
most meritorious men, is this to be considered as an objec- 
tion ? Shall the Constitution oppose their wishes, and 
abridge their most invaluable privilege.'' While property 
continues to be pretty equally divided, and a considerable 
share of information pervades the community, the tendency 
of the people's suffrages will be to elevate merit even from 
obscurity. As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, 
as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater 
degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, 
and the tendency of things will be to depart from the re- 
publican standard. This is the real disposition of human 
nature: it is what neither the honorable member nor myself 
can correct; it is a common misfortune, that awaits our 
State constitution, as well as all others. 

There is an advantage incident to large districts of elec- 
tion, which perhajjs the gentlemen, amidst all their appre- 
hensions of influence and bribery, have not adverted to. In 
large districts, the corruption of the electors is much more 
difficult. Combinations for the purposes of intrigue are 
less easily formed: factions and cabals are little known. 
In a small district, wealth will have a more complete in- 



On the Federal Constitution 119 

fluence; because the people in the vicinity of a great man 
are more immediately his dependents, and because this in- 
fluence has fewer objects to act upon. It has been remarked, 
that it would be disagreeable to the middle class of men to 
go to the seat of the new government. If this be so, the 
difficulty will be enhanced by the gentleman's proposal. If 
his argument be true, it proves that the larger the represen- 
tation is, the less will be your chance of having it filled. 
But it appears to me frivolous to bring forward such argu- 
ments as these. It has answered no other purpose than to 
induce me, by way of reply, to enter into discussions which 
I consider as useless, and not applicable to our subject. 

It is a harsh doctrine, that men grow wicked in propor- 
tion as they improve and enlighten their minds. Experi- 
ence has by no means justified us in the supposition that 
there is more virtue in one class of men than in another. 
Look through the rich and the poor of the community; the 
learned and the ignorant. Where does virtue predominate.^ 
The diff"erence indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind 
of vices, which are incident to various classes; and here the 
advantage of character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices 
are probably more favorable to the prosperity of the State 
than those of the indigent, and partake less of moral de- 
pravity. 

After all, sir, we must submit to this idea, that the true 
principle of a republic is, that the people should choose 
whom they please to govern them. Representation is im- 
perfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is 
checked. This great source of free government, popular 
election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded 
liberty allowed. Where this principle is adhered to; where, 
in the organization of the government, tlie legislative, exec- 
utive, and judicial branches are rendered distinct; where 
again the legislative is divided into separate liouses, and 
the operations of each are controlled by various checks and 
balances, and above all by the vigilance and weight of 
the State governments; to talk of tyranny, and the sub- 



I20 Alexander Hamilton 

version of our liberties, is to speak the language of en- 
thusiasm. This balance between the National and State 
governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention^ 
as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double se- 
curity to the peojole. If one encroaches on their rights^ 
they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, 
they will both be prevented from overpassing their consti- 
tutional limits, by a certain rivalship, which Mill ever sub- 
sist between them. I am persuaded, that a firm union is as 
necessary to perpetuate our liberties, as it is to make us re- 
spectable ; and experience will probably prove, that the na- 
tional government will be as natural a guardian of our free- 
dom as the State legislatures themselves. 

Suggestions, sir, of an extraordinary nature have been 
frequently thrown out in the course of the present political 
controversy. It gives me pain to dwell on topics of this 
kind, and I wish they might be dismissed. We have been 
told that the old Confederation has proved inefficacious, 
only because intriguing and powerful men, aiming at a 
revolution, have been forever instigating the people and 
rendering them disaft'ected with it. This, sir, is a false 
insinuation. The thing is imjjossible. I will venture to 
assert, that no combination of designing men under heaven 
will be capable of making a government unpopular, which 
is in its principles a wise and good one, and vigorous in its 
operations. 

The Confederation was framed amidst the agitation and 
tumult of society. It was composed of unsound materials 
put together in haste. Men of intelligence discovered the 
feebleness of the structure, in the first stages of its ex- 
istence; but the great body of the people, too much en- 
grossed with their distresses to contemplate any but the 
immediate causes of them, were ignorant of the defects of 
their constitution. But when the dangers of war were re- 
moved, they saw clearly what they had suffered, and what 
they had yet to suffer, from a feeble form of government. 
There was no need of discerning men to convince the peo- 



On the Federal Constitution 121 

pie of their unhappy situation ; the complaint was co-ex- 
tensive with the evil^ and both were common to all classes 
of the community. We have been told that the spirit of 
patriotism and love of liberty are almost extinguished 
among the people, and that it has become a prevailing doc- 
trine that republican principles ought to be hooted out of 
the world. Sir, I am confident that such remarks as these 
are rather occasioned by the heat of argument than by a 
cool conviction of their truth and justice. As far as my 
experience has extended, I have heard no such doctrine, nor 
have I discovered any diminution of regard for those rights 
and liberties, in defense of which the people have fought 
and suffered. There have been, undoubtedly, some men who 
have had speculative doubts on the subject of government; 
but the principles of republicanism are founded on too firm 
a basis to be shaken by a few speculative and skeptical 
reasoners. Our error has been of a very different kind. 
We have erred through excess of caution, and a zeal false 
and impracticable. Our counsels have been destitute of 
consistency and stability. I am flattered with a hope, sir, 
that we have now found a cure for the evils under which 
we have so long labored. I trust that the proposed Consti- 
tution afi'ords a genuine specimen of representative and 
republican government, and that it will answer, in an emi- 
nent degree, all the beneficial purposes of society. 



Ill 
National Government Established 

When our forefathers framed and ratified the Federal 
Constitution they merely forged the mechanism of a gov- 
ernment. The setting it up, the adjustment of part to 
part, and establishing the orderly working of the whole in 
just relation to the State governments, was the task of the 
next period following. 

The Constitution as adopted might lend itself to a mere 
confederation of almost sovereign States, or it might in 
operation develop a truly national government, leaving 
only subordinate spheres to the States.* In tone it might 
jDrove either aristocratic or democratic : dominated by the 
well-born, educated and wealthy few, or by the hard-work- 
ing, ill-educated, undistinguished many. If the Federalist 
policy embodied in the Alien and Sedition laws of 1798 
had prevailed, it might have proved a government sub- 
versive of the rights of free speech, and public meeting; 
while the success of the Whisky Rebellion of 179^ would 
have meant the triumph of a personal liberty which spelled 
anarchy. 

That the government was guided into that middle way 
in which national efficiency was achieved while States' 
rights were not unduly sacrificed, was largely tlie result of 
the opposing influences exerted by Hamilton and Jefferson 
— the one tlie cliampion of a strong, efficient, aristocratic 
government; the otlier the ardent advocate of democratic 
equality. In part also, tfiis result was due to tlie logical, 

122 



National Government Established 123 

statesmanlike, organizing genius of John Marshall, Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court, whose decisions from 1801 
to 1835 gave a strongly national inclination to constitution- 
al interpretation and legislation. 

Much also^ was due to social and political changes which 
developed a sentiment of nationality among the people, and 
prepared them for the acceptance of the more national cast 
which was being given to the Federal government. Among 
these changes must be noted: (1) the westward advance of 
settlement and the formation of new States under the sanc- 
tion of the National government; (2) the influx of foreign 
immigrants, who were without sentimental attachments to 
the separate States; and (3) improvements in the means of 
communication, through the construction of turnpikes and 
the National Road, through canal building and the later 
growth of railways, ai?d through the invention of the steam- 
boat, which made rivers and lakes usable as never before 
for purposes of travel and traffic. The influence of (4) 
the foreign relations of the United States on the develop- 
ment of a national sentiment was also important; for out 
of the War of 1812 came the ending of the intellectual and 
political dependence of the United States on Europe, which 
for a score of years had made our politics an echo of the 
strife between France and England. 

It is not possible, even if space permitted, to illustrate 
all these developments in oratorical selections. The great 
discussions which fixed the interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion on the basis of a broad construction of the powers 
granted, are to be found mainly in Supreme Court deci- 
sions and other state papers. A full setting forth of the 
relations of the Federal government to the State govern- 
ments would require the inclusion of the Virginia and Ken- 
tucky Resolutions, which are not properly oratorical. So, 
too, with other aspects. It will be found, however, that 



124 Select Orations 

much has been liere included. Fisher Ames's speech on 
tlie British Treaty, Washington's Farewell Address, and 
Randolph's speecli on War with Great Britain all illustrate 
the subject of American foreign relations and the result- 
ing divisions in domestic politics. Jefferson's First Inau- 
gural sets forth the ideals of the rising democratic party. 
Pinkney's speech on the Missouri Compromise shows the 
opposing schools of constitutional interpretation, and the 
threatening dangers of Slavery. Finally, in Webster's 
reph' to Hayne we have one of the greatest and noblest 
expressions of the developed sense of nationality — the chief 
fruit of this period, — together with a masterly refutation 
of the theory of nullification, to which the South had been 
brought by discontent with the Northern policy of develop- 
ing economic indejjendence of Europe through the means 
of a protective tariff". 

Among the books of most value for the study of this 
period are the following volumes in the series entitled The 
American Nation, a History; Bassett's The Federalist 
Si/stem; Channing's The Jefj'ersonian System; Babcock's 
Rise of American Nationality ; Turner's Rise of the New 
West; McDonald's Jacksonian Democracy. The mcist 
comprehensive and valuable account of the period from 
1801 to 1817 is in Henry Adams's History of the United 
States During the ^Idministrations of Jefferson and Madi- 
son (9 vols.). Other standard histories are Schouler's 
United States, Vols. I-III; McMaster's United States, 
Vols. II-V; Wilson's American People, Vol. III. The fol- 
lowing are excellent short books: Hart's Formation of the 
Union; Walker's Making of the Nation. Among biogra- 
phies we should note Lodge's Hamilton and TVashiiigton ; 
Morse's Jefferson and Schouler's Jefferson; Magruder's 
Marshall; Adams's John Randolph; Schurz's Clay; Von 
Hoist's Calhoun; Curtis's Webster, and Lodge's Webster. 



10. FISHER AMES, of Massachusetts.— THE BRIT- 
, ISH TREATY 

(Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, at New York, 
April 28, 1796.) 

During Washington's first administration, tlu' questions, 
whicli occupied attention were almost exclusively such as 
sprung naturalh^ from the attempt to put in operation a 
hitherto untried form of government. Its various branches 
were organized, the powers given were liberally interpreted, 
and upon the treasury policies adopted under Hamilton the 
people divided into rival political parties. In Washington's 
second administration the outbreak of war between revolu- 
tionary Prance and Great Britain made foreign relations 
the chief question, and embittered the already strained 
party relations by its appeals to opposing sympathies, 
prejudices, and interests. 

In Congress party differences manifested themselves es- 
IDecially in the struggle over the British Treaty of 1794. 
Great Britain's failure to evacuate the Western posts in 
accordance with the treaty of 178'3, her aggressions upon 
American neutral trade, and her impressment of American 
seamen for her navy, brought the two countries to the verge 
of war. In a last effort to settle their differences and 
maintain peace Washington nominated Chief Justice Jay 
to be minister extraordinary to England. By the treaty 

FisHKR Ames. Born in Massachusetts, 1758; graduated from Harvard College, 
1774; admitted to the bar, 1781; member of Massachusetts State Legislature, 
1788; member of Congress, 1789-97, retiring on account of ill-health; for the same 
reason declined the presidency of Harvard College, 1804; died, 1808. 

125 



126 Fisher Ames 

which Jay concluded in ITDi, the questions of the northeast 
boundary, the damages due Britisli merchants from the 
United States because of State laws obstructing the collec- 
tion of pre-Revolutionary debts, and those due American 
merchants and shippers because of illegal seizures by Brit- 
ish cruisers, were referred to separate commissions for set- 
tlement. In addition a commercial treaty for twelve years 
admitted American vessels to a limited participation in the 
trade with the British East and West Indies. No compen- 
sation, however, was secured for the 3,000 negro slaves 
carried oft' by British troops at the close of the war, and 
no understanding was reached on the subject of impress- 
ment. But on the wliole, the treaty was distinctly favorable 
to the United States, and, as Jay said, there was "no rea- 
son to believe or conjecture that one more favorable to us 
was attainable." Nevertheless the treaty was strongly op- 
posed, both among tlie people, in the Senate (where a bare 
constitutional majority in its favor was secured), and later 
in the House of Representatives. 

In the House the question was introduced early in 1796, 
through the need of making appropriations to carry out 
the treaty provisions. The question of the constitutional 
relation of the House to the treaty-making power was in- 
jected into the debate through resolutions moved by Blount 
of North Carolina. These declared that "the House of 
Representatives do not claim any agency in making treaties ; 
but that when a treaty stipulates regulations on any of the 
subjects submitted by the Constitution to the power of 
Congress, it must depend for its execution as to such stipu- 
lations on a law or laws to be passed by Congress, and it 
is the constitutional right and duty of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, in all such cases, to deliberate on the expe- 
diency or inexpediency of carrying such treaty into eff"ect, 



The British Treaty 127 

and to determine and act thereon as in their judgment may 
be most conducive to the public good." 

After three weeks' debate^ the resolution committing the 
House to the support of the treaty was carried by a ma- 
jority of but three votes. 

Of Fisher Ames, the brilliant New England Federalist 
whose speech in behalf of the treaty (April 28, 1796) con- 
tributed much to this result, a writer in the American Re- 
view for 1811 gives the following estimate: "Ames is gen- 
erally concise, always energetic, frequently pointed, though 
he is also figurative and magnificent. His metaphors and 
figures are, however, for the most part original, and he is, 
in my opinion, even more happy than Burke in the use of 
them. He does not pursue them so far. His genius oc- 
casionally blazes out like the lightning of heaven. Its 
corruscations dazzle the eye, and electrify the nerves. He 
sees his subject, not only clearly, but with the eye of pro- 
phecy and inspiration ; and by a single figure, — bold, new, 
and striking, — brings it before you. It is not merely per- 
ceived : it is tangible ; it has life and body and substance. 
In fine, his style, like his thoughts, is original, and his own." 

John Adams, in one of his letters, describes the effect 
produced by Ames's speech. "Judge Iredell and I," he 
says, "happened to sit together. Our feelings beat in 
unison. 'My God! how great he is,' says Iredell; 'how great 
he has been!' 'Noble!' said I. After some time Iredell 
breaks out, 'Bless my stars ! I never heard anything so 
great since I was born.' 'Divine!' said I; and thus we went 
on with our interjections, not to say tears, to the end. 
The situation of the man excited compassion, and 
interested all hearts in his favor. The ladies wish his 
soul had a better body." (Letters of John Adams, pp. 
226-7.) 



128 Fisher Ames 

iFisHER Ames, in the U. S. House of Repiosentatives, 
at New York, April 28, 1796.] 

MR. Chairman : I entertain the hope, perhaps a 
rash one, that my strength will hold me out to 
speak a few minutes. 

In my judgment, a right decision will depend more on 
the temper and manner with which we may prevail upon 
ourselves to contemplate the subject, than upon the develop- 
ment of any profound political principles, or any remark- 
able skill in the application of them. . . . Let us not 
affect to deny the existence and the intrusion of some por- 
tion of jorejudice and feeling into the debate, when, from 
the very structure of our nature, we ought to anticipate the 
circumstance as a probability, and when we are admonished 
by the evidence of our senses that it is the fact. 
Every prejudice and feeling has been summoned to listen 
to some peculiar style of address ; and yet we seem to be- 
lieve, and to consider a doubt as an aftront, that we are 
strangers to any influence but that of unbiased reason. 

It would be strange, that a subject, which has roused in 
turn all the passions of the country, should be discussed 
without the interference of any of our own. We are men, 
and, therefore, not exempt from those passions: as citi- 
zens and representatives, we feel the interests that must 
excite them. The hazard of great interests can not fail to 
agitate strong passions. We are not disinterested; it is 
impossible we should be dispassionate. The warmth of 
such feelings may becloud the judgment, and for a time 
pervert the understanding. But the public sensibility, and 
our own, has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an 
animation to the debate. The public attention has been 
quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its 
judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, 
has become solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, 
I hope, on that account be the safer and more mature, as 
well as more accordant with that of the nation. 

But an attempt has been made to produce an influence 



The British Treaty 129 

of a nature more stubborn, and more unfriendly to truth. 
It is very unfairly pretended, that the constitutional right 
of this house is at stake^ and to be asserted and preserved 
only by a vote in the negative. We hear it said, that this 
is a struggle for liberty, a manly resistance against the de- 
sign to nullify this assembly and to make it a cipher in 
the government ; that the President and Senate, the numer- 
our meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general 
alarm of the country, are the agents and instruments of a 
scheme of coercion and terror, to force the treaty down our 
throats, though we loathe it, and in spite of the clearest con- 
victions of duty and conscience. 

Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only 
by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely 
possible the}^ have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for 
the powers of this house; that the addresses which have 
been made with such variety of forms, and with so great 
dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and pas- 
sion in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments 
of artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject 
once more in its singleness and simplicity. 

It will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the sub- 
ject, to justify the passionate appeals that have been made 
to us to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn 
exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed 
in that on your table, to surrender them forever. In spite 
of this mock solemnity, I demand, if the house will not 
concur in the measure to execute the treaty, what other 
course shall we take.^ How many ways of proceeding lie 
open before us.^ 

In the nature of things there are but three: we are either 
to make the treaty, to observe it, or break it. It would be 
absurd to say we will do neither. If I may repeat a phrase 
already so much abused, we are under coercion to do one of 
them, and we have no power, by the exercise of our dis- 
cretion, to prevent the consequences of a choice. 

By refusing to act, we choose. The treaty will be brok- 



130 Fisher Ames 

en and fall to the ground. Where is the fitness, then, of re- 
plying to those who urge upon the house the topics of duty 
and policy, that they attempt to force the treaty down, 
and to compel this assembly to renounce its discretion, and 
to degrade itself to the rank of a blind and passive instru- 
ment in the hands of the treaty-making power ? In case 
we reject the appropriation, we do not secure any greater 
liberty of action, we gain no safer shelter than before from 
the consequences of the decision. Indeed,, they are not to 
be evaded. It is neither just nor manly to complain that 
the treaty-making power has produced this coercion to act. 
It is not the art or the desjDotism of that power — it is the 
nature of things that compels. Shall we, dreading to be- 
come the blind instruments of power, yield ourselves the 
blinder dupes of mere sounds of imposture? Yet that 
word, that empty word, coercion, has given scope to an elo- 
quence that, one would imagine, could not be tired and did 
not choose to be quieted. 

Let us examine still more in detail the alternatives that 
are before us, and we shall scarcely fail to see, in still 
stronger liglits, the futility of our apprehensions for the 
power and liberty of the house. 

If, as some have suggested, the thing called a treaty is 
incomplete — if it has no binding force or obligation — the 
first question is, — 

Will this House complete the instrument, and, by concur- 
ring, impart to it that force which it wants? 

The doctrine has been avowed that the treaty, though 
formally ratified by the executive jDower of both nations, 
though published as a law for our own by the President's 
proclamation, is still a mere proposition submitted to this 
assembly, no way distinguishable, in point of authority or 
obligation, from a motion for leave to bring in a bill, or 
any other original act of ordinary legislation. This doc- 
trine, so novel in our country yet so dear to many precisely 
for the reason that, in the contention for power, victory is 
always dear, is obviously repugnant to the very terms as 



The British Treaty 131 

well as the fair interpretation of our own resolutions. We 
declare, that the treaty-making power is exclusively vested 
in the President and Senate^ and not in this house. Need 
I say that we fly in the face of that resolution, when we 
pretend that the acts of that power are not valid until we 
have concurred in them .^ It would be nonsense, or worse, 
to use the language of the most glaring contradiction, and 
to claim a share in a power which we at the same time dis- 
claim as exclusively vested in other departments. 

What can be more strange than to say, that the compacts 
of the President and Senate with foreign nations are 
treaties without our agency, and yet those compacts want 
all power and obligation until they are sanctioned by our 
concurrence.^ It is not my design in this place, if at all, 
to go into the discussion of this part of the subject. I will, 
at least for the present, take it for granted that this mon- 
strous opinion stands in little need of remark, and if it does 
lies almost out of the reach of refutation. 

But, say those who hide the absurdity under the cover of 
ambiguous phrases, have we no discretion? and if we have, 
are we not to make use of it in judging of the expediency 
or inexpediency of the treaty? Our resolution claims that 
privilege, and we can not surrender it without equal incon- 
sistency and breach of duty. 

If there be any inconsistency in the case, it lies not in 
making the appropriations for the treaty, but in the reso- 
lution itself [Mr. Blount's]. Let us examine it more nearly. 
A treaty is a bargain between nations, binding in good 
faith ; and what makes a bargain ? The assent of the con- 
tracting parties. We allow that the treaty power is not in 
this house; this house has no share in contracting, and is 
not a party: of consequence, the President and Senate 
alone may make a treaty that is binding in good faith. 
We claim, however, say the gentlemen, a right to judge of 
the expediency of treaties ; that is the constitutional pro- 
vince of our discretion. Be it so. What follows ? Treaties, 
when adjudged by us to be inexpedient, fall to the groimd. 



132 Fisher Ames 

and the public faith is not hurt ! This^ incredible and ex- 
travagant as it may seem, is asserted. The amount of it, 
in plainer language, is this — the President and Senate are 
to make national bargains, and this house has nothing to do 
in making them. But bad bargains do not bind this house, 
and, of inevitable consequence, do not bind the nation. 
When a national bargain called a treaty is made, its bind- 
ing force does not depend upon the making, but upon our 
opinion that it is good. As our opinion on the matter can 
be known and declared only by ourselves, when sitting in 
our legislative capacity, the treatj^, though ratified, and as 
we choose to term it made, is hung up in suspense till our 
sense is ascertained. We condemn the bargain, and it falls, 
though as we say our faith does not. We approve a bargain 
as expedient, and it stands firm, and binds the nation. Yet, 
even in this latter case, its force is plainly not derived from 
the ratification by the treaty-making power, but from our 
approbation. AVho will trace these inferences, and pre- 
tend that we have no share, according to the argument, in 
the treaty-making power? These opinions, nevertheless, 
have been advocated with infinite zeal and perseverance. 
Is it possible that any man can be hardy enough to avow 
them and their ridiculous consequences ? 

Let me hasten to suppose the treaty is considered as al- 
ready made, and then the alternative is fairly presented to 
the mind. Whether we will observe the treaty, or break it. 
This, in fact, is the naked question. 

If we choose to observe it with good faith, our course is 
obvious. Whatever is stipulated to be done by the nation, 
must be complied with. Our agency, if it should be req- 
uisite, can not be properly refused. And I do not see why 
it is not as obligatory a rule of conduct for the legislative 
as for the courts of law. 

I can not lose this opportunity to remark that the coercion 
so much dreaded and declaimed against, appears at length 
to be no more than the authority of jjrinciples, the des- 
potism of duty. Gentlemen complain we are forced to act 



The British Treaty 133 

in this way; we are forced to SAvallow the treaty. It is 
very triie^, unless we claim the liberty of abuse, the right to 
act as we ought not. There is but one right way open for 
us ; the laws of morality and good faith have fenced up 
every other. What sort of liberty is that which we presume 
to exercise against the authority of those laws ? It is for 
tyrants to complain that jDrinciples are restraints, and that 
they have no liberty so long as their despotism has limits. 
These principles will be unfolded by examining the remain- 
ing question : 

Shall we break the treaty? 

The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices 
the interest, the honor, the independence of the United 
States, and the faith of our engagements to France. If 
we listen to the clamor of party intemperance, the evils are 
of a number not to be counted, and of a nature not to be 
borne, even in idea. The language of passion and exag- 
geration may silence that of sober reason in other places ; 
it has not done it here. The question here is, whether the 
treaty be really so very fatal as to oblige the nation to 
break its faith. I admit that such a treaty ought not to be 
executed. I admit that self-preservation is the first law 
of society, as well as of individuals. It would, perhaps, be 
deemed an abuse of terms to call that a treaty which vio- 
lates such a principle. I waive also, for the present, any 
inquiry, what departments shall represent the nation and 
annul the stipulations of a treaty. I content myself with 
pursuing the inquiry, Whether the nature of this compact 
be such as to justify our refusal to carry it into effect. A 
treaty is the promise of a nation. Now, promises do not 
always bind him that makes them. 

But I lay down two rules, which ought to guide us in 
this case. The treaty must appear to be bad, not merely in 
the petty details, but in its character, principle, and mass. 
And in the next place, this ought to be ascertained by the 
decided and general concurrence of the enlightened public. 
I confess there seems to be something very like ridicule 



134 Fisher x^mes 

thrown over the debate by the discussion of the articles in 
detail. 

The undecided point is, Shall we break our faith? And 
while our country and enlightened Europe await the issue 
with more than curiosity, w'e are employed to gather piece- 
meal, and article by article from the instrument, a justifica- 
tion for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit 
arid loss. This is little worthy of the subject, of this body, 
or of the nation. If the treaty is bad, it will appear to be 
so in its mass. Evil to a fatal extreme, if that be its tend- 
ency, requires no proof; it brings it. Extremes speak 
for themselves, and make their own law. What if the 
direct voyage of American ships to Jamaica, with horses 
or lumber, might net one or two per centum more than the 
present trade to Surinam; would the proof of the fact avail 
anything in so grave a question as the violation of the 
public engagements ? 

It is in vain to allege that our faith. ])lighted to France, 
is violated by this new treaty. Our jjrior treaties are ex- 
pressly saved from the operation of the British treaty. 
And what do those mean who say that our honor was for- 
feited by treating at all, and especially by such a treaty? 
Justice, the laws and practice of nations, a just regard for 
peace as a duty to mankind, and the known wish of our 
citizens, as well as that self-respect which required it of 
the nation to act with dignity and moderation — all these 
forbade an appeal to arms before we had tried the effect 
of negotiation. The honor of the United States was saved, 
not forfeited, by treating. The treaty itself, by its stipu- 
lations for the posts, for indemnity, and for a due observa- 
tion of our neutral rights, has justly raised the character of 
the nation. Never did the name of American appear in 
Europe with more lustre than upon the event of ratifying 
this instrument. The fact is of a nature to overcome all 
contradiction. 

But the independence of the country — we are colonists 
again ! This is the cry of the very men who tell us that 



The British Treaty 135 

France will resent our exercise of the rights of an inde- 
pendent nation to adjust onr wrongs with an aggressor, 
without giving her the opportunit}^ to say those wrongs 
shall subsist and shall not be adjusted. This is an admir- 
able specimen of the spirit of independence. The treaty 
with Great Britain, it can not be denied, is unfavorable to 
this strange sort of independence. 

Few men of any reputation for sense, among those who 
say the treaty is bad, will put that reputation so much at 
hazard as to pretend that it is so extremely bad as to war- 
rant and require a violation of the public faith. The 
proper ground of the controversy, therefore, is really unoc- 
cupied by the opposers of the treaty; as the very hinge of 
the debate is on the point, not of its being good or other- 
wise, but whether it is intolerably and fatally pernicious. 
If loose and ignorant declaimers have anywhere asserted 
the latter idea, it is too extravagant and too solidly refuted 
to be repeated here. Instead of any attempt to expose it 
still further, I will say, and I appeal with confidence to 
the candor of many opposers of the treaty to acknowledge, 
that if it had been permitted to go into operation silently, 
like our other treaties, so little alteration of any sort would 
be made by it in the great mass of our commercial and 
agricultural concerns, that it would not be generally dis- 
covered by its effects to be in force during the term for 
which it was contracted. I place considerable reliance on 
the weight men of candor will give to this remark, because 
I believe it to be true, and little short of undeniable. When 
the panic dread of the treaty shall cease, as it certainly 
must, it will be seen through another medium. Those wlio 
shall make search into the articles for the cause of their 
alarms, will be so far from finding stipulations that will 
operate fatally, they will discover few of them that will 
have any lasting operation at all. Those which relate to 
the disputes between the two countries will spend their 
force upon the subjects in dispute and extinguish them. 
The commercial articles are more of a nature to confirm 



136 Fisher Ames 

the existing state of things than to change it. The treaty 
alarm was purely an address to the imagination and prej- 
udices of the citizens^ and not on that account the less 
formidable. Objections that proceed upon error^ in fact 
or calculation, may be traced and exposed; but such as are 
drawn from the imagination or addressed to it, elude defi- 
nition and return to domineer over the mind after having 
been banished from it by truth. 

I will not so far abuse the momentary strength that is 
lent to me by the zeal of the occasion, as to enlarge upon 
the commercial operation of the treaty. I proceed to the 
second proposition, which I have stated as indispensably 
requisite to a refusal of the j)erformance of a treaty : 

Will the state of public opinion justify the deed? 

No government, not even a despotism, will break its faith 
without some pretext; and it must be plausible, it must be 
such as will carry the public opinion along with it. Rea- 
sons of policy, if not of morality, dissuade even Turkey 
and Algiers from breaches of treaty in mere wantonness of 
perfidy, in open contempt of the reproaches of their sub- 
jects. Surely a popular government will not proceed more 
arbitrarily, as it is more f rce ; nor with less shame or 
scruple, in proportion aS it has better morals. It will not 
proceed against the faith of treaties at all, unless the strong 
and decided sense of the nation shall pronounce, not simply 
that the treaty is not advantageous, but that it ought to be 
broken and annulled. Such a plain manifestation of the 
sense of the citizens is indispensably requisite: First, be- 
cause, if the popular apprehension be not an infallible 
criterion of the disadvantages of the instrument, their ac- 
quiescence in the operation of it is an irrefragable proof 
that the extreme case does not exist which alone could 
justify our setting it aside. 

In the next place, this approving opinion of the citizens 
is requisite, as the best preventive of the ill consequences 
of a measure always so delicate and often so hazardous. 
Individuals would, in that case at least, attempt to repel 



The British Treaty 137 

the opprobrium that would be thrown upon Congress by 
those who will charge it with perfidy. They would give 
weight to the testimony of facts^ and the authority of prin- 
ciples, on which the government would rest its vindication. 
And if war should ensue upon the violation, our citizens 
would not be divided from their government, nor the ardor 
of their courage be chilled by the consciousness of injus- 
tice, and the sense of humiliation — that sense which makes 
those despicable who know they are despised. 

I add a third reason, and with me it has a force that no 
words of mine can augment. That a government, wantonly 
refusing to fulfil its engagements, is the corrupter of its 
citizens. Will the laws continue to prevail in the hearts 
of the people, when the respect that gives them efficacy is 
withdrawn from the legislators .'' How shall we punish 
vice, while we practice it.'' We have not force, and vain 
will be our reliance when we have forfeited the resources 
of opinion. To weaken government and to corrupt morals 
are effects of a breach of faith not to be prevented ; and 
from effects they become causes, producing with augmented 
activity more disorder and more corruption: order will be 
disturbed and the life of the public liberty shortened. 

And who, I would inquire, is hardy enough to pretend 
that the public voice demands the violation of the treaty ? 
The evidence of the sense of the great mass of the nation 
is often equivocal; but when was it ever manifested with 
more energy and precision than at the present moment ? 
The voice of the people is raised against the measure of 
refusing the appropriations. If gentlemen should urge, 
nevertheless, that all this sound of alarm is a counterfeit 
expression of the sense of the public, I will proceed to 
other proofs. If the treaty is ruinous to our commerce, 
what has blinded the eyes of the merchants and traders ? 
Surely they are not enemies to trade, or ignorant of their 
own interests. Their sense is not so liable to be mistaken 
as that of a nation, and they are almost unanimous. The 
articles, stipulating the redress of our injuries by captures 



138 Fisher Ames 

on the sea, are said to be delusive. By whom is this said? 
The very men, whose fortunes are staked upon the com- 
petency of that redress, say no such thing. They wait 
with anxious fear lest you should annul that compact on 
which all their hopes are rested. 

Thus we offer proof, little short of absolute demonstra- 
tion, that the voice of our country is raised not to sanction, 
but to deprecate the non-performance of our engagements. 
It is not the nation, it is one and but one brancU of the 
government that proposes to reject them. With this aspect 
of things, to reject is an act of desjieration. 

I shall be asked, Why a treaty so good in some articles, 
and so harmless in others, has met with such unrelenting 
opposition, and how the clamors against it from New 
Hampshire to Georgia can be accounted for.^ The appre- 
hension so extensively diffused, on its first publication, will 
be vouched as proof, that the treaty is bad, and that the 
people hold it in abhorrence. 

I am not embarrassed to find the answer to this insinua- 
tion. Certainly a foresight of its pernicious operation 
could not have created all the fears that were felt or af- 
fected. The alarm spread faster than the publication of 
the treaty. There were more critics than readers. Besides, 
as the subject was examined, those fears have subsided. 

Tlie movements of passion are quicker than those of the 
understanding. We are to search for the causes of first 
impressions not in the articles of this obnoxious and mis- 
represented instrument, but in the state of the public feel- 
ing. 

The fervor of the Revolutionary War had not entirely 
cooled, nor its controversies ceased, before the sensibilities 
of our citizens were quickened with a tenfold vivacity by 
a new and extraordinary subject of irritation. One of the 
two great nations of Europe underwent a change which has 
attracted all our wonder, and interested all our sympathies. 
Whatever they did, the zeal of many went with them and 
often went to excess. These impressions met with much 



The British Treaty 139 

to inflame^ and nothing to restrain them. In our news- 
papers, in our feasts, and some of our elections, enthusiasm 
was admitted a merit, a- test of patriotism, and that made it 
contagious. In the opinion of party, we could not love or 
hate enough. I dare say, in spite of all the obloquy it may 
provoke, we were extravagant in both. It is my right to 
avow that passions so impetuous, enthusiasm so wild, could 
not subsist without disturbing the sober exercise of reason, 
without putting at risk the peace and precious interests of 
our country. They were hazarded. I will not exhaust the 
little breath I ■ have left, to say how much, nor by whom, 
or by what means they were rescued from the sacrifice. 
Shall I be called upon to oft'er my proofs ? They are here. 
They are everywhere. No one has forgotten the proceed- 
ings of 1794! No one has forgotten the captures of our 
vessels, and the imminent danger of war ! The nation 
thirsted not merely for reparation, but vengeance. Suffer- 
ing such wrongs, and agitated by such resentments, was it 
in the power of any words of compact, or could any parch- 
ment with its seals prevail at once to tranquillize the peo- 
ple? It was impossible. Treaties in England are seldom 
popular, and least of all when the stipulations of amity suc- 
ceed to the bitterness of hatred. Even the best treaty, 
though nothing be refused, will choke resentment but not 
satisfy it. Ever}^ treaty is as sure to disappoint extrava- 
gant expectations as to disarm extravagant passions. Of 
the latter, hatred is one that takes no bribes. They who 
are animated by the spirit of revenge will not be quieted by 
the possibility of profit. 

Why do they complain, that the West Indies are not 
laid open? Why do they lament, that any restriction is 
stipulated on the commerce of the East Indies? Why do 
they pretend, that if they reject this, and insist upon more, 
more will be accomplished? Let us be explicit: more would 
not satisfy. If all was granted, would not a treaty of 
amity with Great Britain still be obnoxious ? Have we 
not this instant heard it urged against our envoy, that he 



140 Fisher Ames 

was not ardent enough in his hatred of Great Britain? A 
treaty of amity is condemned because it was not made by 
a foe, and in the spirit of one. The same gentleman, at 
the same instant, repeats a very prevailing objection, that 
no treaty should be made with the enemy of France. No 
treaty, exclaim others, should be made with a monarch or 
a despot: there will be no naval security while those sea- 
robbers domineer on the ocean : their den must be destroyed : 
that nation must be extirpated ! 

I like this, sir, because it is sincerity. With feelings 
such as these, we do not pant for treaties. Such passions 
seek nothing, and will be content with nothing, but the 
destruction of their object. If a treaty left King George 
his island, it would not answer; not if he stipulated to pay 
rent for it! It has been said, the world ought to rejoice 
if Britain was sunk in the sea; if where there are now men, 
and wealth, and laws^ and liberty, there was no more than 
a sandbank for the sea-monsters to fatten on ; a space for 
the storms of the ocean to mingle in conflict. 

I object nothing to the good sense or humanity of all 
this. I yield the point, that this is a proof that the age of 
reason is in progress. Let it be philanthropy, let it be 
patriotism, if you will; but it is no indication that any 
treaty would be approved. The difliculty is not to overcome 
the obj ections to the terms ; it is to restrain the repugnance 
to any stipulations of amity with the party. 

Having alluded to the rival of Great Britain, I am not 
unwilling to explain myself: I affect no concealment, and I 
liave practiced none. While those two great nations agi- 
tate all Europe with their quarrels, they Avill both equally 
desire, and with any chance of success equally endeavor to 
create an influence in America. Each wall exert all its 
arts to range our strength on its own side. How is this to 
be eiFected ? Our government is a democratical republic. 
It will not be disposed to pursue a system of politics in sub- 
servience to either France or England, in opposition to the 
general wishes of the citizens ; and if Congress should 



The British Treaty 141 

adopt such measures^ they would not be pursued long nor 
with much success. From the nature of our government, 
popularity is the instrument of foreign influence. Without 
it, all is labor and disapi^ointment. With that mighty aux- 
iliary, foreign intrigue finds agents — not only volunteers, 
but competitors for employment; and anything like re- 
luctance is understood to be a crime. Has Britain this 
means of influence? Certainly not! If her gold could buy 
adherents, their becoming such would deprive them of all 
political power and importance. They would not wield 
popularity as a weapon, but M'ould fall under it. Britain 
has no influence, and for the reasons just given can have 
none. She has enough ; and God forbid she ever should 
have more. France, possessed of popular enthusiasm, of 
party attachments, has had and still has too much influence 
on our politics : anv foreign influence is too much, and ought 
to be destroyed. I detest the man and disdain the spirit 
that can bend to a mean subserviency to the views of any 
nation. It is enough to be Americans ! That character 
comprehends our duties, and ought to engross our attach- 
ments. 

But I would not be misunderstood. I would not break 
the alliance with France; I would not have the connection 
between the two countries even a cold one. It should be 
cordial and sincere ; but I would banish that influence which, 
by acting on the passions of the citizens, may acquire a 
power over the government. 

Gentlemen have said, with spirit. Whatever the true doc- 
trine of our Constitution may be. Great Britain has no 
right to complain or to dictate an interpretation. The 
sense of the American nation, as to the treaty power, is to 
be received by all foreign nations. This is very true as a 
maxim; but the fact is against those who vouch it. The 
sense of the American nation is not as the vote of the house 
has declared it. Our claim to some agency in giving force 
and obligation to treaties is, beyond all kind of controversy. 



142 Fisher Ames 

novel. The sense of the nation is probably against it. The 
sense of the government certainly is. The President denies 
it on constitutional grounds^ and therefore can not ever ac- 
cede to our interpretation. The Senate ratified the treaty, 
and can not without dishonor adopt it, as I have attempted 
to show. Where, then, do tliey find the proof that this is 
the American sense of the treaty-making power, which is 
to silence the murmurs of Great Britain? Is it because a 
majority of two or three, or at most of four or five, of this 
house will reject the treaty.^ Is it thus the sense of our 
nation is to be recognized.'' Our government may thus be 
stopped in its movement: a struggle for power may thus 
commence, and the event of the conflict may decide who is 
the victor, and the quiet possessor of the treaty power. 
But at present it is beyond all credibility that our vote, by 
a bare majority, should be believed to do anything better 
than to imbitter our divisions, and to tear up the settled 
foundations of our deiaartments. 

On every hyi^othesis, therefore, the conclusion is not to 
be resisted: we are either to execute this treaty, or break 
our faith ! 

To expatiate on the value of public faith may pass with 
some men for declamation : to such men I have nothing to 
say. To others I will urge. Can any circumstance mark 
upon a people more turpitude and debasement.'' Can any- 
thing tend more to make men think themselves mean, or de- 
grade to a lower point their estimation of virtue and their 
standard of action.^ 

It would not merely demoralize mankind: it tends to 
break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that myste- 
rious charm which attracts individuals to the nation, and to 
inspire in its stead a repulsive sense of shame and disgust. 

What is patriotism.'' Is it a narrow affection for the 
spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where 
we tread entitled to this ardent preference because they 
are greener? No, sir; this is not the character of the 



The British Treaty 143 

virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended 
self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and 
twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart ! 
It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the 
laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of 
force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's 
honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and 
cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is 
willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that 
he gains protection while he gives it. For what rights of a 
citizen will be deemed inviolable when a state renounces 
the principles that constitute their security.^ Or, if his 
life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be 
in a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishon- 
ored in his own.^ Could he look with affection and venera- 
tion to such a country as his jaarent? The sense of having 
one would die within him ; he would blush for his patriot- 
ism, if he retained any; and justly, for it would be a vice. 
He would be a banished man in his native land ! 

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among na- 
tions to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this en- 
lightened period when it is violated, there are none when it 
is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of 
governments. It is observed by barbarians : a whiff of to- 
bacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely bind- 
ing force, but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce 
may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers 
is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. 
Thus we see neither the ignorance of savages, nor the prin- 
ciples of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a 
nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be 
a resurrection from the foot of the gallows — if the victims 
of justice could live again, collect together, and form a 
society — they would, however loath, soon find themselves 
obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, 
the fundamental law of their state. They would perceive 
it was their interest to make others respect, and they would 



144 Fisher Ames 

therefore soon pay some respect themselves, to the obliga- 
tions of good faith. 

It is painful — I hope it is superfluous — to make even the 
supposition, that America should furnish the occasion of 
tliis opprobrium. No: let me not even imagine that a re- 
publican government, sprung (as our own is) from a people 
enlightened and uncorrupted — a government whose origin 
is right, and whose daily discipline is duty — can, upon 
solemn debate, make its option to be faithless ; can dare to 
act what despots dare not avow, what our own example 
evinces, the States of Barbary are unsuspected of. Xo: 
let me rather make the supposition, that Great Britain re- 
fuses to execute the treaty, after we have done everything 
to carry it into effect. Is there any language of reproach 
pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? 
What would you say, or rather what would you not say? 
A\ ould you not tell them, wherever an Englishment might 
travel, shame would stick to him : he would disown his coun- 
try. You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and 
arrogant in the possession of power, blush for these dis- 
tinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonor ! 
Such a nation might truly say to corruption. Thou art my 
father, and to the worm. Thou art my mother and my 
sister ! We should say of such a race of men, their name 
is a heavier burden than tlieir debt. 

I can scarcely persuade myself to believe, that the con- 
sideration I have suggested requires the aid of any aux- 
iliary; but, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. 
Five millions of dollars, and probably more, on the score 
of spoliations committed on our commerce, depend upon 
the treaty. The treaty offers the only prospect of in- 
demnity. Such redress is promised as the merchants place 
some confidence in. Will you interpose and frustrate that 
hope; leaving to many families nothing but beggary and 
despair? It is a smooth proceeding to take a vote in this 
body: it takes less than half an hour to call the yeas and 



The British Treaty 145 

nays and reject the treaty. But what is the effect of 
it?' ... 

Will you pay the sufferers out of the treasury? No. 
The answer was given two years ago, and appears on our 
journals. Will you give them letters of marque and re- 
prisal to pay themselves by force ? No : that is war. Be- 
sides, it would be an opportunity for those who have al- 
ready lost much to lose more. Will you go to war to avenge 
their injury? If you do, the war will leave you no money 
to indemnify them. If it should be unsuccessful, you Avill 
aggravate existing evils : if successful, your enemy will 
have no treasure left to give our merchants; the first 
losses will be confounded with much greater, and be for- 
gotten. At the end of a war there must be a negotiation, 
which is the very point we have already gained; and why 
relinquish it? And who will be confident that the terms 
of the negotiation, after a desolating war, would be more 
acceptable to another House of Representatives, than the 
treaty before us? Members and opinions may be so 
changed that the treaty would then be rejected for being 
what the joresent majority say it should be. Whether we 
shall go on making treaties and refusing to execute them, 
I know not. Of this I am certain, it will be very difficult 
to exercise the treaty-making power, on the new principles, 
with mvich reputation or advantage to the country. 

The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the 
treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral 
in its consequences. From great causes we are to look 
for great effects. A plain and obvious one will be, the 
price of the western lands will fall. Settlers will not 
choose to fix their habitation on a field of battle. Those 
who talk so much of the interest of the United States should 
calculate how deeply it will be affected by rejecting the 
treaty; how vast a tract of wild land will almost cease to 
be property. This loss, let it be observed, will fall upon a 
fund expressly devoted to sink the national debt. What, 
then, are we called upon to do? However the form of the 



146 



Fisher Ames 



vote and the protestations of many may disguise the pro- 
ceeding, our resohition is in substance^ and it deserves to 
wear the title of a resolution^ to prevent the sale of the 
western lands and the discharge of the public debt. 

If any . . . should maintain that the peace with 
the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will 
urge another reply. ... I resort especially to the con- 
victions of the western gentlemen whether, supposing no 
posts and no treaty ;, the settlers will renjain in security. 
Can they take it upon them to say that an Indian peace, 
under these circumstances, will prove firm ? No, sir : it 
will not be peace, but a sword: it will be no better than a 
lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk. 

On this theme, my emotions are unutterable. If I could 
find words for them — if my powers bore any proportion to 
my zeal — I would swell my voice to such a note of remon- 
strance it should reach every log-house beyond the moun- 
tains. I would say to the inhabitants : Wake from your 
false security ! Your cruel dangers, your more cruel ap- 
prehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet un- 
healed, are to be torn open again; in the day time, your 
path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of 
midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. 
You are a father, — the blood of your sons shall fatten your 
cornfield: you are a mother, the war-whoop shall wake the 
sleep of the cradle I . . . 

By rejecting the posts we light the savage fires, we bind 
the victims. This day we undertake to render account to 
the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, to 
the wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our coun- 
try, and (I do not deem it too serious to say) to conscience 
and to God. We are answerable ; and if duty be anything 
more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a 
bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched 
as our country. 

There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Ex- 
perience has already been the prophet of events, and the 



The British Treaty 147 

cries of our future victims have already reached us. The 
western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining 
sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of 
their wilderness : it exclaims that^ while one hand is held up 
to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It 
summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It 
is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events 
so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to 
the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture ; 
already they seem to sigh in the west wind; already they 
mingle with every echo from the mountains ! . . . 

Is it possible for a real American to look at the 
prosperity of this country without some desire for its 
continuance, without some respect for the measures which 
many will say produced, and all will confess have preserved 
it? Will he not feel some dread that a change of system 
will reverse the scene.'' The well-grounded fears of our 
citizens in 179^ were removed by the treaty, but are not 
forgotten. Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and 
would not this adjustment have been considered, at that 
day, as a happy escape from the calamity? The great in- 
terest and the general desire of our people was to enjoy 
the advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however 
misrepresented, affords America that inestimable security. 
The causes of our disputes are either cut up by the roots, 
or referred to a new negotiation after the end of the Eu- 
ropean war. This was gaining everything, because it con- 
firmed our neutrality by which our citizens are gaining 
ever3^hing. This alone would justify the engagements of 
the government. For, when the fiery vapors of the war 
lowered in the skirts of our horizon^ all our wishes were 
concentered in this one, that we might escape the desola- 
tion of the storm. This treaty, like a rainbow on the edge 
of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was 
raging, and afforded, at the same time, the sure prognostic 
of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colors will grow 



148 Fisher Ames 

pale; it will be a baleful meteor, portending tempest and 
war. 

Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the appropriation 
to carry it into faithful execution. Thus we shall save the 
faith of our nation, secure its peace, and diffuse the spirit 
of confidence and enterprise that will augment its pros- 
perity. The progress of wealth and improvement is won- 
derful, and some will think too rapid. The field for exer- 
tion is fruitful and vast, and if peace and good government 
should be preserved, the acquisitions of our citizens are not 
so pleasing as the proofs of their industry, as the instru- 
ments of their future success. The rewards of exertion go 
to augment its power. Profit is every hour becoming capi- 
tal. The vast crop of our neutrality is all seed-wheat, and 
is sown again to swell almost beyond calculation the future 
harvest of prosperity. And in this progress, what seems 
to be fiction is found to fall short of experience. 

I rose to speak under impressions that I would have re- 
sisted if I could. Those who see me will believe that the 
reduced state of my health has unfitted me, almost equally 
for much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared for de- 
bate by careful reflection in my retirement, or by long 
attention here, I thought the resolution I had taken to sit 
silent was imposed by necessity, and would cost me no 
effort to maintain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas, and 
sinking, as I really am, under a sense of weakness, I 
imagined the very desire of speaking was extinguished by 
the persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet when I come 
to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread 
from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In 
my view, even the minutes I have spent in expostulation 
have their value, because they protract the crisis, and the 
short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it. 

I have thus been led by my feelings to speak more at 
length than I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little 
personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, 
I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a 



The British Treaty 149 

witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, how- 
ever, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, 
as it will, with the public disorders, to make "confusion 
worse confounded," even I, slender and almost broken as 
my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and Con- 
stitution of my country. 



11. GEORGE WASHINGTON, of Virginia.— FARE- 
WELL ADDRESS 

(Published September 19, 1796.) 

The same year — and in j^art the same circumstances of 
party sympathy and antipathy for France and England 
respectively — that produced Ames's speech on the British 
treaty, also called forth Washington's Farewell Address. 

In no department of our government is the influence of 
Washington more traceable than in the conduct of foreign 
affairs. Reared to a life of action rather than of reflec- 
tion, his talents were essentially those of a man of affairs, 
and not those of a political theorist. No schemes of gov- 
ernment were contributed by him in the Philadelphia Con- 
vention : his part was purely one of moral influence. So, 
too, in the organization of the government under the Con- 
stitution, the initiation of the measures needed was left 
largely to the members of his cabinet. 

In the field of foreign affairs, however, where Ameri- 
cans were divided between conflicting opinions, the con- 
servative temperament and sound judgment of Washing- 
ton eminently fitted him to take the lead. Jefferson, his 
Secretary of State, though a brilliant theorist on govern- 
ment, was mifitted to mark out a safe foreign policy: his 
sympathies were too entirely with France; his judgment too 

George Washington. Born in Virginia, l~M: in command of a Virgrinia 
company against the French, 1754; appointed commander-in-cliief of Virginia 
forces, 1755; member of Continental Congress, 1771; commander-in-chief of the 
American army, 1775-83: president of the Federal Convention, 1787; President 
of the United States, 1789-97; died, 1799. 

150 



Farewell Address 151 

warped by prejudice and passion, and by blind reliance 
upon the impulse of the people. And where Jefferson 
erred on one side, Hamilton erred on the other. One was 
too democratic, the other too aristocratic; one was too 
French, the other too British. It required a calm judg- 
ment and a firm will to keep the balance even, and these 
were the special traits of Washington. 

It is difficult for us to-day to appreciate what it cost 
Washington in popularity to maintain his policy of "a fair 
neutrality" between England and France. A republican 
newspaper in 1796 dared to use this language of him: "If 
ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American na- 
tion has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation 
was deceived by a man, the American nation has been de- 
ceived by Washington. Let his conduct then be an example 
to future ages; let it serve to be a warning that no man 
may be an idol; let the history of the Federal government 
instruct mankind that the mask of patriotism may be worn 
to conceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the 
people." 

It was the widespread existence of this blind party 
spirit, and of divisions based upon partisanship for Eng- 
land or France, which called forth Washington's memorable 
address, published September 19:, 1796. Its composition 
was largely the work of Hamilton, but its principles are 
truly Washington's. Interesting information concerning 
its preparation, with copies of its successive draughts, may 
be found in Ford, Writings of George Washington, Vols. 
XII and XIII. 



1^2 George Washington 

[Georgf. Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.] 

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS: Tlic period tor a 
new election of a citizen to administer the executive 
government of the United States being not far dis- 
tant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must 
be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed 
with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially 
as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the pub- 
lic voice, that I should now apprise you of, the resolution I 
have formed, to decline being considered among the number 
of those out of whom a choice is to be made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be 
assured that this resolution has not been taken without a 
strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the 
relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and 
that in withdrawing the tender of service which silence, in 
my situation, might imply, I am influenced by no diminu- 
tion of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grate- 
ful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a 
full conviction that the steji is compatible with both. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for 
your welfare, which can not end but with my life, and the 
apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me 
on an occasion like the present to offer to your solemn con- 
templation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some 
sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no in- 
considerable observation, and which appear^to me all-im- 
portant to the permanency of your felicity as a people. 
These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you 
can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a part- 
ing friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to 
bias his counsel. Nor can I forget^ as an encouragement 
to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a 
former and not dissimilar occasion. 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament 



Farewell Address 153 

of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to 
fortify or confirm the attachment. 

The unity of government, which constitutes you one peo- 
ple, is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a 
main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the sup- 
port of your tranquillity at home, 3'our peace abroad, of 
your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which 
you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from 
different causes and from different quarters, much pains 
will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your 
minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in 
your political fortress against which the batteries of in- 
ternal and external enemies will be most constantly and 
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed: 
it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate 
the immense value of your national union to your collective 
and individual happiness ; that you should cherish a cordial, 
habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming 
yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of 
your political safety and prosperity, watching for its pres- 
ervation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever 
may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be 
abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawn- 
ing of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country 
from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link 
together the various parts. 

P'or this you have every inducement of sympathy and 
interest. Citizens, by birth or clioice, of a common country, 
that country has a right to concentrate your affections. 
The name of American, which belongs to you in your na- 
tional capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriot- 
ism more than any appellation derived from local discrimi- 
nations. With slight shades of difference, you have the 
same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. 
You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed to- 
gether; the indejjendence and liberty you possess, are the 



154 George Washington 

work of joint councils and joint eft'orts, of common dangers, 
sufferings, and successes. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they ad- 
dress themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed 
by those which apply more immediately to your interest. 
Here every portion of our country finds the most command- 
ing motives for carefully guarding and preserving the 
union of the whole. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the 
South, protected by the equal laws of a common govern- 
ment, finds in the productions of the latter great additional 
resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and 
precious materials of manufacturing industry. The Soiitli, 
in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the 
North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. 
Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the 
North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and 
while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and in- 
crease the general mass of the national navigation, it looks 
forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which 
itself is unequally adapted. The East, in like intercourse 
with the West, already finds, and in the progressive im- 
provement of interior communications by land and water 
will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodi- 
ties which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. 
The West derives from the East sujDplies requisite to its 
growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still greater 
consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment 
of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the 
weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the 
Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble com- 
munity of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by 
which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether 
derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate 
and unnatural connection with any foreign power [Spain], 
must be intrinsically precarious. 

While then every part of our country thus feels an im- 



Farewell Address 155 

mediate and particular interest in union, all the parts com- 
bined can not fail to find in the united mass of means and 
efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionabl}'^ 
greater security from external danger, a less frequent in- 
terruption of their peace by foreign nations ; and, what is 
of inestimable value, they must derive from union an ex- 
emption from those broils and wars between themselves 
which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied 
together by the same government, wliich their own rival- 
ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which 
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues, 
would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will 
avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establish- 
ments which, under any form of government, are inauspi- 
cious to liberty and which are to be regarded as particularly 
hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your 
union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, 
and that the love of one ought to endear to you the preser- 
vation of the other. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, 
it occurs, as a matter of serious concern, that any ground 
should have been furnished for characterizing parties by 
geographical discriminations — Northern and Southern, At- 
lantic and Western — whence designing men may endeavor 
to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local in- 
terests and views. One of the expedients of party to ac- 
quire influence within particular districts, is to misrepresent 
the opinions and aims of other districts. You can not shield 
yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burn- 
ings which spring from these misrepresentations ; they tend 
to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound 
together by fraternal affection. 

Toward the preservation of your government and the 
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not 
only that you speedily discountenance irregular opposition 
to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with 



1^6 George Washington 

care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however 
specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to 
effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will 
impair the energy of the system, and thus to imdermine 
what can not be directly overthrown. In all tlie changes to 
wliich you may be invited, remember that time and habit 
are at least as necessary to fix the true character of govern- 
ment as of other human institutions ; that experience is the 
surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the 
existing constitution of a country ; that facility in changes, 
upon the credit of mere liypothesis and opinion, exposes 
to perpetual change from the endless variety of hypothesis 
and opinion. And remember especially that for the ef- 
ficient management of your common interests, in a country 
so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is 
consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispen- 
sable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with 
powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guar- 
dian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where the gov- 
ernment is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of fac- 
tion, to confine each member of society within the limits 
prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and 
tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property. 

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in 
the state, with particular reference to the founding of them 
on geographical discrimination. Let me now take a more 
comprehensive view, and warn you, in the most solemn man- 
ner, against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, gen- 
erally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our na- 
ture, having its root in the strongest passions of the human 
mind. It exists under different shapes, in all governments, 
more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed. But in those 
of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and 
is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, 
sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dis- 



Farewell Address 157 

sensions, which in diii'erent ages and countries has perpe- 
trated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful 
despotism. But this leads, at length, to a more formal 
and permanent despotism. The disorders and mise- 
ries which result, gradually incline the minds of men to 
seek security and repose in the absolute power of an indi- 
vidual ; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing fac- 
tion, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns 
this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the 
ruins of public liberty. 

It serves always to distract the public councils, and en- 
feeble the public administration. It agitates the community 
with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the 
animosity of one part against another; foments occasional- 
ly riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign in- 
fluence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to 
the government itself, through the channels of party pas- 
sions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are 
subjected to the policy and will of another. 

There is an opinion that parties, in free countries, are 
useful checks upon the administration of the government, 
and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within 
certain limits, is probably true; and in governments of a 
monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if 
not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of 
popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a 
spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, 
it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for 
every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger 
of excess, the effort ou^ht to be, by force of public opinion, 
to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it 
demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a 
flame lest, instead of warming, it should consume. 

It is important likewise that the habits of thinking, in a 
free country, should inspire caution in those intrusted with 
its administration, to confine themselves within their re- 
spective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of 



158 George Washington 

the powers of one department to encroach upon another. 
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers 
of all the dc23artments in one, and tluis to create, whatever 
the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate 
of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which pre- 
dominate in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of 
the truth of this ])osition. The necessity of reciprocal 
checks in the exercise of political power by dividing and 
distributing it into different depositaries and constituting 
each the guardian of the public weal against invasion by 
the other, has been evinced by experiments ancient and 
modern : some of them in our country, and inider our own 
eyes. To j^reserve them, must be as necessary as to insti- 
tute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution 
or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any par- 
ticular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the 
way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no 
change by usurpation ; for though this, in one instance, may 
be tlie instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by 
which free governments are destroyed. The precedent 
must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, any 
partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time 
yield. 

Of all the dispositions and liabits which lead to political 
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable sup- 
ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriot- 
ism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of hu- 
man happiness, these firmest props of the destinies of men 
and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious 
man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could 
not trace all their connection with private and public fe- 
licity. Let it simply be asked. Where is the security for 
property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious 
obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of 
investigation in courts of justice.^ And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained 
without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the in- 



Farewell Address 159 

fluence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, 
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious prin- 
ciple. 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, in- 
stitutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In pro- 
portion as the structure of a government gives force to 
public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be 
enlightened. 

As a very important source of strength and security, 
cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to 
use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of ex- 
pense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that time- 
ly disbursements to prepare for danger, frequently prevent 
much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise 
the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions 
of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to 
discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have oc- 
casioned not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the 
burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution 
of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is 
necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To fa- 
cilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essen- 
tial that you should practically bear in mind that towards 
the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have 
revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised 
which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; 
that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the se- 
lection of the proper objects (which is always the choice 
of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid 
construction of the conduct of the government in making 
it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for ob- 
taining revenue which the public exigencies may at any 
time dictate. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; culti- 
vate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality 
enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not 



i6o George Washington 

equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free^ enlightened 
and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to man- 
kind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people 
always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who 
can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits 
of such a plan would richly fepay any temporary advan- 
tages that might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can 
it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent 
felicity of a nation with its virtue? The exjieriment, at 
least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles 
human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essen- 
tial than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against 
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, 
should be excluded; and that in place of them, just and 
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The 
nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, 
or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a 
slave to its animosity or to its att'ection, either of which is 
sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. 
Antipathy in one nation against another, disposes each more 
readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight 
causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, 
when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. 

Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed and 
bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and re- 
sentment, sometimes impels to war the government, con- 
trary to the best calculations of policy. The government 
sometimes participates in the national propensity, and 
adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other 
times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to 
projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other 
sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, and 
sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations, has been the 
victim. 

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for 
another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the 



Farewell x^ddress i6i 

favorite nation facilitating the illusion of an imaginary 
common interest in cases where no real common interest 
exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, be- 
trays the former into a participation in the quarrels and 
wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justi- 
fication. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation 
of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to in- 
jure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily 
parting with what ought to have been retained, and by ex- 
citing jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in 
the parties from Avhom equal privileges are withheld: and 
it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who 
devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray 
or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without 
odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the 
appearence of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commend- 
able deference for public opinion, or laudable zeal for 
public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, 
corruption, or infatuation. 

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign na- 
tions is, in extending our commercial relations to have with 
them as little political connection as possible. So far as we 
have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with 
perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have 
none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged 
in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially 
foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise 
in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary 
vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and 
collisions of her friendships and enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us 
to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, un- 
der an efficient government, the period is not far off when 
we may defy material injury from external annoyance ; when 
we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we 



i62 George Washington 

may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected ; 
when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making 
acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us 
provocation ; when we may choose peace or war, as our inter- 
est, guided by j ustice, shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation ? 
Why quit our own, to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, by 
interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, 
entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European 
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? 

'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances 
with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as 
we are now at liberty to do it ; for let me not be understood 
as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. 
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private 
affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, 
therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genu- 
ine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary, and would 
be unwise, to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable es- 
tablishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may 
safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emer- 
gencies. 

Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations^ are 
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even 
our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial 
hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or 
preferences ; consulting the natural course of things ; dif- 
fusing and diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of 
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers 
so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to de- 
fine the rights of our merchants, and to enable the govern- 
ment to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the 
best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will 
permit, but temporary, and liable to be, from time to time, 
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall 
dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one 



Farewell Address 163 

nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that 
it must pay with a portion of its independence for what- 
ever it may accept under that character; that, by such ac- 
ceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having 
given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being re- 
proached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can 
be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real 
favors from nation to nation. 'Tis an illusion which ex- 
perience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, 
I am unconscious of intentional error, I am, nevertheless, 
too sensible of my defects, not to think it probable that I 
may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, 
I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the 
evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me 
the hope that my country will never cease to view them with 
indulgence, and that after forty-five years of my life dedi- 
cated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of in- 
competent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself 
must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this^ as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love toward it which is so natural 
to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his 
progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with 
pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promised 
myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of 
partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign 
influence of good laws under a free government — the ever 
favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I 
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 



12. THOMAS JEFFERSON, of Virginia.— FIRST IN- 
AUGURAL ADDRESS 

(Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1801.) 

The retirement of Washington from political leader- 
ship paved the way for the downfall of the Federalist 
party. John Adams, with good reason, hated and feared 
Hamilton for what he believed to be treacherous conduct; 
and Hamilton, without reason, despised Adams. The Fed- 
eralist dissensions placed Jefferson in the Vice Presidential 
chair in 1797; and President Adams's vanity, lack of tact, 
and general inaptitude for party leadership widened the 
breach. In this situation the extreme section of the Fed- 
eralists secured control, and used the popular indignation 
excited against France by the "X, Y, Z" affair to pass the 
Alien and Sedition Acts. These prescribed fourteen years' 
residence as a preliminary to naturalization of immigrants, 
subjected aliens to arbitrary arrest and removal by the 
government, and provided severe penalties for political 
slander and sedition. The Federal government was thus 
given powers over the persons of its opponents which it is 
unsafe to place in the hands of any administration; and 
Jefferson's fears led him to see yet further dangers. "If 
this goes down," he wrote, "we shall immediately see at- 

Thomas Jefferson. Born in Virginia, 1743; graduated from William and Mary 
College; admitted to the bar, 1767; elected to legislature in 1769, and actively 
engaged for some years after in the work of the Revolution, and in reforming 
the laws of Virginia; in Congress, 1775-76, 178;?-84: governor of Virginia, 1779-81; 
minister to France, 1784-89; Secretary of State, 1790-94; Vice-President, 1797-1801; 
President, 1801-09; secured founding of University of Virginia; died, 1826. 

164 



First Inaugural 165 

temjDted another act of Congress declaring that the Presi- 
dent shall continue in office during life^ reserving to an- 
other occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, 
and the establishment of the Senate for life." {Works, IV, 
p. 258.) Among the people there followed a revulsion of 
feeling against rampant Federalism. In the presidential 
election of 1800, the Republicans were therefore success- 
ful, and Jefi'erson became President. 

The Federalist party had established a strong govern- 
ment, but its work was now done. The failure to rallv 
from this reverse must be sought chiefly in its undemocratic 
temper. The history of the Revolution, of the period of 
the Confederation, and of the administrations of Wash- 
ington and of Adams in their domestic aspects, constitute 
one long struggle between the forces of aristocracy and 
democracy. The French Revolution had now given the 
ascendency to the party which championed democracy; and 
the P'ederalists, with their out-worn idea that government 
should rest in the hands of the rich and well-born, were 
out of touch with the times. The election of 1800 is thus 
rightly held to mark a revolution in the political and social 
history of the United States ; and Jefferson's first inaugural 
announces the program of the new era. 

The inauguration was the first to take place in the new 
city of Washington. It was marked by simplicity, as be- 
fitted the principles of its central figure : but the story that 
Jefferson rode on horseback unattended to the Capitol, and 
after hitching his horse to the palings went inside to take 
the oath, is pure invention. The British charge d'affaires, 
who was present, wrote officially to his government: "He 
[Jefferson] came from his own lodgings to the house 
where the Congress convenes ... on foot, in his ordi- 
nary dress, escorted by a body of militia artillery from the 
neighboring State, and accompanied by the Secretaries of 



1 66 Thomas Jefferson 

the Navy and Treasury and a number of his personal 
friends in the House of Representatives." 

The inaugural address was moderate in tone, with the 
design botli of showing that Jefferson was no French 
Jacobin ready to turn the world topsy-turvy, and of con- 
ciliating the rank and file of the Federalist party. To 
quote from Henry Adams's great History of the United 
States under Jefferson and Madison: "Jefferson's first 
inaugural . . . was for a long time almost as well 
known as the Declaration of Independence. ... As 
the starting-point of a powerful political party, the first 
inaugural was a standard by which future movements were 
measured; and it went out of fashion only when its prin- 
ciples were universally accepted or thrown aside." 



[Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, at Washington, March 4, 1801.] 

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS: Called upon to 
undertake the duties of the first executive office of 
our country, I avail myself of the presence of that 
portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled, to 
express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they 
have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere 
consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I 
approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments 
which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my 
powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a 
wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the 
rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce 
with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing 
rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye, — when 
I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, 
the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country com- 
mitted to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink 
from the contemplation, and humble myself before the 



First Inaugural 167 

magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I 
despair, did not the presence of many whom I here see 
remind me that in the other high authorities provided by 
our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, 
and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, 
then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign func- 
tions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I 
look with encouragement for that guidance and support 
which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in 
which we are embarked amidst the conflicting elements 
of a troubled world. 

During the contest of opinion through which we have 
passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has 
sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers 
unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they 
think; but this being now decided by the voice of the na- 
tion, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, 
all will of course arrange themselves under the will of the 
law, and unite in common eff'orts for the common good. 
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though 
the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will 
to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority pos- 
sess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to 
violate would be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, 
unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social 
intercourse that harmony and aff'ection without which lib- 
erty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us 
reflect that, having banished from our land that religious 
intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suff"ered, 
we have yet gained little if we countenance a political in- 
tolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter 
and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions 
of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of in- 
furiated "man, seeking through blood and slaughter his 
long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation 
of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful 
shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and 



1 68 Thomas Jefferson 

less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of 
safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of 
principle. We have called by different names brethren of the 
same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federal- 
ists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve 
the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand 
Hudisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error 
of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to 
combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that 
a republican government cannot be strong, that this govern- 
ment is not strong enough: but would the honest patriot, in 
the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a govern- 
ment which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theo- 
retic and visionary fear that this government, the world's 
best liojje, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself.^ 
I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest gov- 
ernment on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, 
at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, 
and would meet invasions of the public order as his own 
personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be 
trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be 
trusted with the government of others ? Or have we found 
angels in the forms of kings to govern him.'' Let history 
answer this question. 

Let us then with courage and confidence pursue our own 
federal and republican principles, our attachment to union 
and representative government. Kindlj^ separated by na- 
ture and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of 
one-quarter of the globe ; too high-minded to endure the ' 
degradations of the others ; possessing a chosen country, 
with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth 
and thousandth generation ; entertaining a due sense of our 
equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisi- 
tions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from 
our fellow-citizens resulting not from birth but from our 
actions and their sense of them ; enlightened by a benign 
religion, professed indeed and practiced in various forms. 



First Inaugural 169 

yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, 
gratitude, and the love of man ; acknowledging and adoring 
an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations 
proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his 
greater happiness hereafter, — with all these blessings, what 
more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous 
people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens: a wise and 
frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring 
one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate 
their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall 
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. 
This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary 
to close the circle of our felicities. 

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties 
which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, 
it is proper you should understand what I deem the essen- 
tial principles of our government, and consequently those 
which ought to shape its administration. I will compress 
them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating 
the general principle but not all its limitations : Equal and 
exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, 
religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friend- 
ship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the 
support of the State governments in all their rights, as the 
most competent administrations for our domestic concerns 
and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies ; 
the preservation of the general government in its whole 
constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at 
home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of elec- 
tion by the people, — a mild and safe corrective of abuses 
which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peace- 
able remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the 
decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, 
from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and 
immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, 
our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war 
till regulars may relieve them ; the supremacy of the civil 



170 Thomas Jefiferson 

over the military authority; economy in the public expense, 
that labor may be lightly burthened ; the honest payment of 
our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; en- 
couragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its hand- 
maid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all 
abuses at the bar of the public reason ; freedom of religion ; 
freedom of the press ; and freedom of person under the pro- 
tection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially 
selected. These principles form the bright constellation 
which has gone before us and guided our steps through an 
age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our 
sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their 
attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, 
the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try 
the services of those we trust; and should we wander from 
them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to re- 
trace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads 
to peace, liberty, and safety. 

I repair then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have as- 
signed me. With experience enough in subordinate offices 
to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I 
have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of 
imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputa- 
tion and the favor which bring him into it. Without pre- 
tensions to that high confidence you reposed in our first 
and greatest revolutionarj^ character, whose pre-eminent 
services had entitled him to the first place in his country's 
love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of 
faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may 
give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your 
affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judg- 
ment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by 
those whose positions will not command a view of the whole 
ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which 
will never be intentional, and your support against the 
errors of others, who may condemn what they would not 
if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your 



First Inaugural 171 

suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past; and my 
future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those 
who have bestowed it in advance^ to conciliate that of others 
by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instru- 
mental to the happiness and freedom of all. 

Relying then on the patronage of your good will, I ad- 
vance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it 
whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is 
in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power 
which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils 
to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your 
peace and prosperity. 



13. JOHN RANDOLPH, of Virginia.— AGAINST 
WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 

(Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, 
December 10, 1811.) 

It is the irony of history that Jeiferson and Madison, 
the two Presidents who have most made "peace their pas- 
sion/' were successively in charge of affairs while the 
United States was drifting into its second war with Great 
Britain. 

The treaty of 1794 failed to settle the question of neu- 
tral trading rights and impressment; and in the course of the 
European war American commerce was practically de- 
stroyed between the rival policies of Napoleon and Great 
Britain, embodied respectively in the Berlin and Milan de- 
crees, and the British Orders in Council. Jefferson, how- 
ever, had a rooted aversion to armies and navies ; and to com- 
bat these aggressions he recommended, and the Republican 
House and Senate passed (December 22, 1807), the Em- 
bargo Act, which forbade vessels to depart from American 
ports for the ports of foreign powers. The act remained 
in force for fifteen months. Its effects are thus described 
by Henry Adams, the greatest of American historians: 
"The cost of this engine for national purposes exceeded 
all calculation. Financially it emptied the treasury, bank- 
rupted the mercantile and agriculture class, and ground 

John Randolph (of Roanoke). Born in Virginia, 1773; attended William and 
Mary College, Princeton College, and Columbia College; served in Congress, 
I799-1812, 1816-25. and 1827-29; in the Senate, 1825-27: memberof the Virginia Con- 
stitutional Convention, 1829; minister to Russia, 1830-31; died 1833. 

172 



War With Great Britain 173 

the poor beyond endurance. Constitutionally it overrode 
every specified limit on arbitrary power and made Con- 
gress despotic, Avhile it left no bounds to the authority 
which might be vested by Congress in the President. 
Morally it sapped the nation's vital force, lowering its 
courage, paralyzing its energy, corrupting its principles, 
and arraying all the active elements of society in factious 
opposition to government or in secret paths of treason. 
Politically it cost Jefferson the fruit of eight years pain- 
ful labor for popularity, and brought the Union to the edge 
of a precipice." (Henry Adams, History of the U. S., IV, 
p. 287.) 

The abandonment of the policy of commercial restric- 
tions for one of war was due to the election to Congress in 
1810 of a groujD of young Republican "war hawks" led by 
Clay and Calhoun — "the first ripened product of the gen- 
eration which had grown up since the Revolutionary War." 
(Babcock, Rise of American Nationality, p. 51.) Their 
policy was opposed by the large Federalist minority, and 
by a small section of dissatisfied Republicans under the 
leadership of the brilliant but erratic John Randolph of 
Roanoke. The groxmds of Randolph's opposition to the 
war were set forth in the sjDeech given below, which was 
delivered December 10, 1811. Its immediate occasion was 
a proposal to raise an additional force of 10,000 troops for 
three years. 

In reply to Randolph, John C. Calhoun of South Caro- 
lina delivered next day his first great speech in Congress, 
which in the opinion of those who heard it completely de- 
molished Randolph's arguments. Limits of space forbid 
the insertion of Calhoun's speech in this collection, but the 
following extracts will show something of its character: 

"The question [said Mr. Calhoun], even in the opinion 
and admission of our opponents, is reduced to this single 



174 Joh"^ Randolph 

point: Which shall we do, abandon or defend our own com- 
mercial and maritime rights, and the personal liberties of 
our citizens employed in exerting them? These rights are 
essentially attacked, and war is the only means of redress. 
. . . We are told of the expenses of the war, and that 
the people will not pay taxes. . . . Where will proof 
be found of a fact so disgraceful.^ . . 

"Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low 
and 'calculating avarice' entering this hall of legislation. 
It is only fit for shops and counting-houses, and ought not 
to disgrace the seat of sovereignty by its squalid and vile 
appearance. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the 
nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. 
It is an unpromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to 
save the balance. It is too timid to have in itself the laws 
of self-preservation. It is never safe but under the shield 
of honor. Sir, I only know one principle to make a nation 
great, to produce in this country not the form but real 
spirit of union ; and that is, to protect every citizen in the 
lawful pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he 
is backed b}^ the government — that its arm is his arm — 
and will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. 
I can not dare to measure in shillings and pence 
the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our impressed 
seamen ; nor even to value our shipping, commercial, and 
agricultural losses under the Orders in Council and the 
British system of blockade." 



War With Great Britain 175 

[John Randolph, in the U. S. House of Representatives, December 10, 1811.] 

MR. Speaker: This is a question, as it has been pre- 
sented to this house, of peace or war. In that 
light it has been argued; in no other light can I 
consider it^ after the declarations made by members of the 
Committee of Foreign Relations. Without intending any 
disrespect to the Chair [Mr. Clay], I must be permitted to 
say that if the decision yesterday was correct, "that it was 
not in order to advance any arguments against the resolu- 
tion drawn from topics before other committees of the 
house," the whole debate, nay the report itself on which 
we are acting, is disorderly, since the increase of the mili- 
tary force is a subject at this time in agitation by a select 
committee raised on that branch of the President's mes- 
sage. But it is impossible that the discussion of a ques- 
tion broad as the wide ocean of our foreign concerns; in- 
volving every consideration of interest, of right, of happi- 
ness, and of safety at home; touching in every point all 
that is dear to freemen, "their lives, their fortunes, and 
their sacred honor," can be tied down by the narrow rules 
of technical routine. 

The Committee of Foreign Relations have indeed decided 
that the subject of arming the militia (which has been 
pressed upon them as indispensable to the public security) 
does not come within the scope of their authority. On 
what ground I have been and still am unable to see, they 
have felt themselves authorized to recommend the raising 
of standing armies, with a view (as has been declared) of 
immediate war — a war, not of defense, but of conquest, of 
aggrandizement, of ambition — a war foreign to the in- 
terests of this country — to the interests of humanity itself. 

I know not how gentlemen calling themselves Republic- 
ans can advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 
1798 and '9, when the command of the army — that highest 
of all possible trusts in any government, be the form wliat 
it may — was reposed in the bosom of the Father of his 
Country — the sanctuary of a nation's love ; the only hope 



176 John Randolph 

that never came in vain ! — when other worthies of the revo- 
lution, Hamilton, Pinkney, and the younger Washington, 
men of tried patriotism, of approved conduct and valor, of 
untarnished honor, held subordinate command under him ? 
Republicans were then unwilling to trust a standing army 
even to his hands, who had given proof that he was above 
all human temptation. Where now is the revolutionary 
hero to whom you are about to confide this sacred trust? 
To whom will you confide the charge of leading the flower 
of our youth to the heights of Abraham ? Will you find 
him in the person of an acquitted felon? [Gen. James 
Wilkinson, involved in Burr's traitorous designs.] What! 
then you were unwilling to vote an army where such men 
as have been named held high command ! When Washing- 
ton himself was at the head, did you show such reluctance, 
feel such scruples; and are you now nothing loath, fearless 
of every consequence? Will you say that your provoca- 
tions were less then than now, when your direct commerce 
was interdicted, your ambassadors hooted with derision 
from the French court, tribute demanded [in the X, Y, Z 
affair], actual war waged upon you? 

Those who opposed the army then were indeed denounced 
as the partisans of France; as the same men (some of them 
at least) are now held up as the advocates of England: 
those firm and luideviating Republicans, who then dared, 
and now dare, to cling to the ark of the Constitution, to de- 
fend it even at the expense of their fame, rather than sur- 
render themselves to the wild projects of mad ambition. 
There is a fatality attending plenitude of power. Soon or 
late some mania seizes upon its possessors ; they fall from 
the dizzy height through giddiness. Like a vast estate 
heaped up by the labor and industry of one man, which 
seldom survives the third generation, power gained by pa- 
tient assiduity, by a faithful and regular discharge of its 
attendant duties, soon gets above its own origin. Intoxicated 
with their own greatness, the Federal party fell. Will not 
the same causes produce the same effects now as then? 



War With Great Britain 177 

Sir, you may raise this army, you may build iip this vast 
structure of patronage; but "lay not the flattering unction 
to your souls:" you will never live to enjoy the succession. 
You sign your political death-warrant. 

An insinuation has fallen from the gentleman from Ten- 
nessee [Mr. Grundy] that the late massacre of our brethren 
on the Wabash [battle of the Tippecanoe, November 7, 
1811] was instigated by the British government. Has the 
President given any such information.'* Is it so believed 
by the administration.^ I have cause to believe the con- 
trary to be the fact — that such is not their opinion. This 
insinuation is of the grossest kind — a presumption the most 
rash, the most unjustifiable. Show but good ground for 
it, I will give up the question at the threshold; I will be 
ready to march to Canada. It is, indeed, well calculated 
to excite the feelings of the western people particularly, 
who are not quite so tenderly attached to our red brethren 
as some of our modern philosophers; but it is destitute of 
any foundation beyond mere surmise and suspicion. What 
would be thought if, without any proof whatsoever, a mem- 
ber should rise in his place and tell us that the massacre 
in Savannah — a massacre perpetrated by civilized sav- 
ages, with French commissions in their pockets — was ex- 
cited by the French government? There is an easy and 
natural solution of the late transaction on the Wabash, in 
the well-known character of the aboriginal savage of North 
America, without resorting to any such mere conjectural 
estimate. I am sorry to say that for this signal calamity 
and disgrace the house is, in part at least, answerable. 
Session after session our table has been piled up with 
Indian treaties, for which the appropriations have been 
voted as a matter of course, without examination. Ad- 
vantage has been taken of the spirit of the Indians, broken 
by the war which ended in the treaty of Greenville [1795]. 
Under the ascendency then acquired over them, they have 
been pent up, by subsequent treaties, into nooks ; straitened 



178 John Randolph 

in their quarters by a blind cupidity, seeking to extinguish 
their title to immense wildernesses: for which (possessing 
as we do already more land than we can sell or use) we 
shall not have occasion for half a century to come. It is 
our own thirst for territory, our own want of moderation, 
that has driven these sons of nature to desperation, of 
which we feel the effects. 

I can not refrain from smiling at the liberality of the 
gentleman, in giving Canada to New York in order to 
strengthen the northern balance of power, while at the same 
time, he forewarns her that the western scale must prepon- 
derate. I can almost fancy that I sec the capitol in motion 
towards the Falls of Ohio, after a short sojourn taking its 
flight to the [Mississippi, and finally alighting on Darien; 
which, when the gentleman's dreams are realized, will be a 
most eligible seat of government for the new republic (or 
empire) of the two Americas! But it seems, that "in 1808 
we talked and acted foolishly," and to give some color of 
consistency to that folly, we must now commit a greater. 
Really I can not conceive of a weaker reason, offered in 
support of a present measure, than the justification of a 
former folly. I hope we shall act a wise part, — take warn- 
ing by our follies, since we have become sensible of them, 
and resolve to talk and act foolishly no more. It is in- 
deed high time to give over such preposterous language 
and proceedings. This war of conquest — a war for the 
acquisition of territory and subjects — is to be a new com- 
mentary on the doctrine that republicans are destitute of 
ambition; that they are addicted to peace, wedded to the 
happiness and safety of the great body of their people. 
But, it seems, this is to be a holiday campaign ; there is to 
be no expense of blood or treasure on our part; Canada 
is to conquer herself ; she is to be subdued by the principles 
of fraternity ! The people of that country are first to be 
seduced from their allegiance, and converted into traitors 
as jareparatory to making them good citizens ! Although 
I must acknowledge that some of our flaming patriots were 



War With Great Britain 179 

thus manufactured^ I do not think the process would hold 
good with a whole community. It is a dangerous experi- 
ment. We are to succeed in the French mode, by the sys- 
tem of fraternization — all is French ! But how dreadfully 
it might be retorted on the southern and western slave- 
holding States. I detest this subornation of treason. No: 
if we must have them, let them fall by the valor of our 
arms ; by fair, legitimate conquest ; not become the victims 
of treacherous seduction. 

I am not surprised at the war-spirit which is manifesting 
itself in gentlemen from the South. In the year 1805-06, 
in a struggle for the carrying trade of belligerent-colonial 
produce, this country was most unwisely brought into col- 
lision with the great powers of Europe. By a series of 
most impolitic and ruinous measures, utterly incompre- 
hensible to every rational, sober-minded man, the Southern 
planters, by their own votes, have succeeded in knocking 
down the price of cotton to seven cents, and of tobacco (a 
few choice crops excepted) to nothing; and in raising the 
price of blankets (of which a few would not be amiss in 
a Canadian campaign), coarse woollens, and every article 
of first necessity, three or four hundred per centum. And 
now that, by our own acts, we have brought ourselves into 
this unprecedented condition, we must get out of it in any 
way but by an acknowledgment of our own want of wis- 
dom and forecast. But is war the true remedy.'^ Who 
will profit by it ? Speculators ; a few lucky merchants who 
draw prizes in the lottery; commissaries and contractors. 
Who must suffer by it.^ The people. It is their blood, 
their taxes, that must flow to support it. 

But gentlemen avowed that they would not go to war 
for the carrying trade; that is, for any other but the direct 
export and import trade; that which carries our native 
products abroad, and brings back the return cargo: and yet 
they stickle for our commercial rights, and will go to war 
for them ! I wish to know, in point of principle, what 
difference gentlemen can point out between the abandon- 



i8o John Randolph 

ment of this or of that maritime right? Do gentlemen as- 
sume the lofty port and tone of cJiivalrous redressers of 
maritime wrongs, and declare their readiness to surrender 
every other maritime right provided they may remain un- 
molested in the exercise of the humble privilege of carry- 
ing their own produce abroad and bringing back a return 
cargo? Do you make this declaration to the enemy at the 
outset? Do you state the minimum with which you will be 
contented, and put it in tlieir power to close with your pro- 
posals at their option, — give her the basis of a treaty ruin- 
ous and disgraceful beyond example and expression ? And 
this too after having turned up your noses in disdain at 
the treaties of Mr. Jay [1794] and Mr. Monroe [Decem- 
ber 31, 1806] ! Will you say to England, "End the war 
when you please; give us the direct trade in our own prod- 
uce, we are content?" But what will the merchants of 
Salem, and Boston, and New York, and Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore, the men of Marblehead and Cape Cod, say to 
this? Will they join in a war, professing to have for its 
object what they would consider (and justly too) as the 
sacrifice of their maritime rights, yet affecting to be a war 
for the protection of commerce? 

I am gratified to find gentlemen acknowledging the de- 
moralizing and destructive consequences of the non-im- 
portation law [substituted for the embargo, March 1, 
1809] ; confessing the truth of all that its opponents fore- 
told, when it was enacted. And will you plunge yourselves 
in war, because you have passed a foolish and ruinous law 
and are ashamed to repeal it? "But our good friend, the 
French Emperor, stands in the way of its repeal; and as 
we can not go too far in making sacrifices to him who has 
given such demonstration of his love for the Americans, 
we must in point of fact become parties to his war. Who 
can be so cruel as to refuse him that favor?" My imagina- 
tion shrinks from the miseries of such a connection. I call 
upon the house to reflect whether they are not about to 
abandon all reclamation for the unparalleled outrages. 



War With Great Britain i8i 

"insults, and injuries" of the French government; to give 
up our claim for plundered millions: and I ask what repa- 
ration or atonement they can expect to obtain in hours of 
future dalliance, after they shall have made a tender of 
their person to this great deflowerer of the virginity of 
republics? We have, by our own wise (I will not say 
wiseacre) measures, so increased the trade and wealth of 
Montreal and Quebec, that at last we begin to cast a wish- 
ful eye at Canada. Having done so much towards its im- . 
provement by the exercise of "our restrictive energies," we 
begin to think the laborer worthy of his hire, and to put in 
claim for our portion. Suppose it ours: are we any nearer 
to our point? As his minister said to the king of Epirus, 
"May we not as well take our bottle of wine before as after 
this exploit?" Go! march to Canada! leave the broad 
bosom of the Chesapeake and her hundred tributary rivers, 
the whole line of sea-coast from Machias to St. Mary's un- 
protected ! You have taken Quebec : have you conquered 
England? Will you seek for the deep foundations of her 
power in the frozen deserts of Labrador? 

" Her march is on the mountain wave. 
Her home is on the deep." 

Will you call upon her to leave your ports and harbors 
untouched, only just till you can return from Canada to 
defend them? The coast is to be left defenseless, whilst 
men of the interior are revelling in conquest and spoil. But 
grant for a moment, for mere argument's sake, that in 
Canada you touched the sinews of her strength, instead of 
removing a clog upon her resources — an encumbrance, but 
one which from a spirit of honor she will vigorously de- 
fend. In what situation would you then place some of the 
best men of the nation? As Chatham and Burke, and 
the whole band of her patriots, prayed for her defeat in 
1776, so must some of the truest friends to their country 
deprecate the success of our arms against the only power 
t]\at holds in check the arch-cnemv of mankind. 



1 82 John Randolph 

The Committee have butstripped the Executive. In 
designating the power against whom this force is to be em- 
ployed, as has most unadvisedly been done in the preamble 
or manifesto with which the resolutions are prefaced, they 
have not consulted the views of the Executive; that designa- 
tion is equivalent to an abandonment of all our claims on 
the French government. No sooner was the report laid on 
the table than the vultures were flocking round their prey 
— the carcass of a great military establishment. Men of 
tainted reputation, of broken fortune (if they ever had 
any), and of battered constitutions, "choice spirits, tired 
of the dull pursuits of civil life," were seeking after 
agencies and commissions, willing to doze in gross stupidity 
over the public fire ; to light the public candle at both ends. 
Honorable men undoubtedly there are, ready to serve their 
country; but Avhat man of spirit, or of self-respect, will 
accept a commission in the present army? The gentleman 
from Tennessee [Mr. Grundy] addressed himself yesterday 
exclusively to the "republicans of the house." I know not 
whether I may consider myself as entitled to any part of 
the benefit of the honorable gentleman's discourse. It be- 
longs not, however, to that gentleman to decide. If we 
must have an exposition of the doctrines of republicanism, 
I shall receive it from the fathers of the church, and not 
from the junior apprentices of the law. I shall appeal to 
my worthy friends from Carolina [Messrs. Macon and 
Stanford], "men with whom I ha^e measured my strength," 
by whose side I have fought during the reign of terror; 
for it was indeed an hour of corruption, of oppression, of 
pollution. It is not at all to my taste — that sort of repub- 
licanism which was supported, on this side of the Atlantic, 
by the father of the Sedition Law, John Adams, and by 
"Peter Porcupine" on the other. Republicanism! of John 
Adams and William Cobbett [a noted radical agitator in 
England and America, who wrote over the signature of 
"Peter Porcupine"] ! . . . Gallant crusaders in the 
holy cause of republicanism ! Such "republicanism does. 



War With Great Britain 183 

indeed, mean anything or nothing." Our people will not 
submit to be taxed for this war of conquest and dominion. 
The government of the United States was not calculated 
to wage offensive foreign war; it was instituted for the 
common defense and general welfare; and whosoever 
should embark it in a war of offense, would put it to a test 
which it is by no means calculated to endure. Make it out 
that Great Britain has instigated the Indians on a late oc- 
casion, and I am ready for battle, but not for dominion. 
I am unwilling, however, luider present circumstances, to 
take Canada at the risk of the Constitution, — to embark in 
a common cause with PVance and to be dragged at the 
wheels of the car of some Burr or Bonaparte. For a gen- 
tleman from Tennessee, or Genesee, or Lake Champlain, 
there may be some prospect of advantage. Their hemp 
would bear a great price by the exclusion of foreign sup- 
ply. In that, too, the great importers are deeply inter- 
ested. The upper country dn the Hudson and the lakes 
would be enriched by the supplies for the troops, which 
they alone could furnish. They would have the exclusive 
market; to say nothing of the increased preponderance 
from the acquisition of Canada of that section of the Union, 
which the Southern and Western States have already felt so 
severely in the apportionment bill. 

Permit me now, sir, to call your attention to the sub- 
ject of our black population. I will touch this subject as 
tenderly as possible. It is with reluctance that I touch it 
at all; but in cases of great emergency the state physician 
must not be deterred, by a sickly hysterical humanity, 
from probing the wound of his patient: he must not be 
withheld by a fastidious and mistaken delicacy from rep- 
resenting his true situation to his friends, or even to the 
sick man himself, when the occasion calls for it. What is 
the situation of the slave-holding States.^ During the 
War of the Revolution, so fixed were their habits of sub- 
ordination that while the whole country was overrun by 



184 John Randolph 

the enemy, who invited tliem to desert, no fear was ever 
entertained of an insurrection of the slaves. During a war 
of seven years, with our country in possession of the enemy, 
no such danger was ever apprehended. But should we, 
therefore, be unobservant spectators of the progress of 
society within the last twenty years ; of the silent, but pow- 
erful change wrought, by time and chance, upon its com- 
position and temper.'' When the fountains of the great 
deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor slaves 
did not escape the general deluge. The French Revolution 
has polluted even them. Nay, there have not been wanting 
men in this house — witness our legislative Legendre, the 
butcher who once held a seat here — to preach upon this 
floor these imprescriptible rights to a crowded audience of 
blacks in the galleries ; teaching them that they are equal 
to their masters ; in other words, advising them to cut their 
throats. Similar doctrines have been disseminated by 
peddlers from New England and elsewhere, throughout 
the Southern country; and masters have been found so in- 
fatuated as. by their lives and conversation, by a general 
contempt of order, morality, and religion, unthinkingly to 
cherisli these seeds of self-destruction to them and their 
families. What has been the consequence? Within the 
last ten years, repeated alarms of insurrections among the 
slaves ; some of them awful, indeed. From the spreading 
of this infernal doctrine, the whole Southern country has 
been thrown into a state of insecurity. Men dead to the 
ojieration of moral causes have taken away from the poor 
slave his habits of loyalty and obedience to his master, 
which lightened his servitude by a double operation, be- 
guiling his own cares and disarming his master's suspicions 
and severity; and now, like true empirics in politics, you 
are called upon to trust to the mere physical strength of 
the fetter which liolds him in bondage. You have deprived 
him of all moral restraint; you have tempted him to eat of 
the fruit of the tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect 
him in wickedness ; you have opened his eyes to his naked- 



War With Great Britain 185 

ness ; you have armed his nature against the hand that has 
fed, that has clothed him, that has cherished him in sick- 
ness, — that hand, wliich, before he became a pupil of your 
school, he had been accustomed to press with respectful af- 
fection. You have done all this, — and then show him the 
gibbet and the wheel, as incentives to a sullen, repugnant 
obedience. God forbid, sir, that the Southern States should 
ever see an enemy on their shores, with these infernal prin- 
ciples of French fraternity in t)ie van. While talking of tak- 
ing Canada, some of us are shuddering for our own safety 
at home. I speak from facts when I say that the night-bell 
never tolls for fire in Richmond, that the mother does not 
hug her infant more closely to her bosom. I have been a 
witness of some of the alarms in the capital of Virginia. 

How have we shown our sympathy with the patriots of 
Spain, or with the American provinces ? By seizing on 
one of them [West Florida seized 1810; seizure of East 
Florida authorized by Congress, January 15, 1811], her 
claim to which we had formerly respected, as soon as the 
parent country was embroiled at home. Is it thus we yield 
them assistance against the arch-fiend, who is grasping at 
the sceptre of the civilized world? The object of France 
is as much Spanish- America as old Spain herself. Much 
as I hate a standing army, I could almost find it in my 
heart to vote one, could it be sent to the assistance of the 
Sj^anish patriots. 

Against whom are these cliarges of British predilection 
brought.'' Against men who, in the War of the Revolution, 
were in the coimcils of the nation, or fighting the battles 
of your country. And by whom are they made? By runa- 
ways chiefly from the British dominions, since the breaking 
out of the French troubles. It is insufferable. It can not 
be borne. It must and ought, with severity, to be put down 
in this house, and out of it to meet the lie direct. We have 
no fellow-feeling for the sufl'ering and oppressed Span- 
iards ! Yet even them we do not reprobate. Strange ! that 



1 86 John Randolph 

we should have no objection to any other people or gov- 
ernment, civilized or savage^ in the whole world ! The 
great autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage of our 
high consideration. The dey of Algiers and his divan of 
pirates are very civil good sort of people, with whom we 
find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and 
amity. "Turks, Jews and Infidels," Melimelli or the Little 
Turtle, barbarians and savages of every clime and color, 
are welcome to our arms. With chiefs of banditti, negro 
or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. Name however but 
England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against 
her. Against whom ? Against those whose blood runs in 
our veins ; in common with whom we claim Shakespeare and 
Newton and Chatham for our countrymen; whose form of 
government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted ; 
from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions 
has been borrowed — representation, jury trial, voting the 
supplies, writ of habeas corpus — our whole civil and crim- 
inal jurisprudence: against our fellow Protestants, identi- 
fied in blood, in language, in religion with ourselves ! In 
what school did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, 
Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of America, learn 
those principles of civil liberty, which were so nobly as- 
serted by their wisdom and valor? American resistance to 
British usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by 
these great men and their comjDatriots — not more by Wash- 
ington. Hancock, and Henry — than by Chatham and his il- 
lustrious associates in the British Parliament. It ought to 
be remembered too that the heart of the English people 
was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt ministry, and 
their servile tools, to whom we were not more opposed than 
they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among us ; 
for tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, 
however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. 
I acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare and a Mil- 
ton upon my imagination, of a Locke upon my understand- 
ing, of a Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chat- 



War With Great Britain 187 

ham upon qualities which would to God I possessed in com- 
mon with that illustrious man ! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, 
and a Porteus, upon my religion. This is a British in- 
fluence which I can never shake off". I allow much to the 
just and honest prejudices growing out of the Revolution. 
But by whom have they been suppressed when they ran 
counter to the interests of my country? By Washington. 
By whom, would you listen to them, are they most keenly 
felt.^ By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, Newgate, 
and Kilmainham, since the breaking out of the French 
Revolution; who in this abused and insulted country have 
set up for political teachers, and whose disciples give no 
other proof of their progress in republicanism except a 
blind devotion to the most ruthless military despotism that 
the world ever saw. These are the patriots who scruple not 
to brand with the epithet of tory, the men [looking to- 
wards the seat of Colonel Stewart] by whose blood your 
liberties have been cemented. These are they, who hold 
in such keen remembrance the outrages of the British 
armies, from which many of them are deserters. Ask these 
self-styled patriots where they were during the American 
War (for they are, for the most part, old enough to have 
borne arms), and you strike them dumb; their lips are 
closed in eternal silence. If it were allowable to entertain 
partialities, every consideration of blood, language, religion, 
and interest would incline us towards England; and yet, 
shall they be alone extended to France and her ruler, whom 
we are bound to believe a chastening God suffers as the 
scourge of a guilty world? On all other nations he 
tramples ; he holds them in contempt : England alone he 
hates ; he would, but he can not, despise her ; fear can not 
despise : and shall we disparage our ancestors ? Shall we 
bastardize ourselves by placing them even below the bri- 
gands of St. Domingo? — with whom Mr. Adams negotiated 
a sort of treaty, for which he ought to have been and would 
have been impeached, if the people had not previously 



i88 John Randolph 

passed sentence of disqualification for their service upon 
him. This antipathy to all that is English, must be French. 
But the outrages and injuries of England, bred up in 
the principles of the Revolution, I can never palliate, much 
less defend them. I well remember flying with my mother 
and her newborn child from Arnold and Phillips — and we 
were driven by Tarleton and other British pandours from 
pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles 
of his country. The impression is indelible on my mem- 
ory; and yet (like my worthy old neighbor, who added 
seven buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of Guil- 
ford, and drew a fine sight at his man) I must be content 
to be called a tory by a patriot of the last importation. 
Let us not get rid of one evil (supposing it possible) at the 
expense of a greater: mutatis mutandis, suppose France in 
possession of the British naval power — and to her the 
trident must pass, should England be unable to wield it — 
what would be your condition } What would be the situa- 
tion of your seaports and their seafaring inhabitants? Ask 
Hamburg, Lubeck [seized by France, 1806", and oppressive- 
ly ruled] ! Ask Savannah ! AVhat, sir, when their priva- 
teers are pent up in our harbors by the British bull-dogs; 
when they receive at our hands every right of hospitality, 
from which their enemy is excluded; when they capture 
in our own waters, interdicted to British armed ships, Amer- 
ican vessels : when such is their deportment towards you, 
under such circumstances, what could you expect if they 
Avere the uncontrolled lords of the ocean } Had those pri- 
vateers at Savannah borne British commissions, or had 
your shipments of cotton, tobacco, ashes, and what not, to 
London and Liverpool, been confiscated and the proceeds 
poured into the English exchequer, my life upon it you 
would never have listened to any miserable wire-drawn 
distinctions between "orders and decrees affecting our 
neutral rights," and "municipal decrees" confiscating in 
mass your whole property: you would have had instant 
war ! The whole land would have blazed out in war. And 



War With Great Britain 189 

shall reiDublicans become the instruments of hhn who has 
effaced the title of Attila to the "scourge of God?" Yet 
even Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had no 
doubt his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites, in 
the very countries that he overrun — sons of that soil where- 
on his horse had trod, where grass could never after grow. 
If perfectly fresh — instead of being as I am, my memory 
clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength and spirits ex- 
hausted — I could not give utterance to that strong detesta- 
tion which I feel towards (above all other works of the 
creation) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli 
Khan, or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at 
their bare idea — malefactors of the human race who have 
ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and 
bloody ambition ! Yet under all the accumulated wrongs 
and insults and robberies of the last of these chieftains, are 
we not in point of fact about to become a party to his 
views, a partner in his wars.^ 

But before this miserable force of ten thousand men is 
raised to take Canada, I beg gentlemen to look at the state 
of defense at home ; to count the cost of the enterprise be- 
fore it is set on foot, not when it may be too late, — when 
the best blood of the country shall be spilt, and naught 
but empty coffers left to pay the cost. Are the bounty lands 
to be given in Canada.^ It might lessen my repugnance to 
that part of the system to granting these lands, not to 
these miserable wretches who sell themselves to slavery for 
a few dollars and a glass of gin, but in fact to the clerks 
in our offices, some of whom, with an income of fifteen 
hundred or two thousand dollars, live at the rate of four 
or five thousand and yet grow rich; who perhaps at this 
moment are making out blanket assignments for these land 
rights. I beseech the house, before they run their heads 
against this post, Quebec, to count the cost. My word for 
it, Virginia planters will not be taxed to support such a 
war — a war which must aggravate their present distresses 
— in which thev have not the remotest interest. AVhere is 



igo John Randolph 

the Montgomery, or even the Arnold, or the Burr, wlio is 
to march to the Point Levi ? 

I call upon those professing to be Repiiblicans, to make 
good the promises held out by their Republican predeces- 
sors, when they came into power; promises which, for years 
afterwards, they honestly, faithfully fulfilled. We have 
vaunted of paying off the national debt; of retrenching 
useless establishments, and yet have now become as in- 
fatuated with standing armies, loans, taxps, navies, and 
war, as ever were the Essex Junto [a group of extreme 
PVderalists, of whom Timothy Pickering was chief, so 
called from Essex county, Mass., which was a stronghold of 
Federalism.] 



14. WILLIAM PINKNEY, of Maryland.— THE MIS- 
SOURI QUESTION 

(Delivered in the U. S. Senate, February 15, 1820.) 

Until 181.9 Congress touched upon Slavery only in- 
cidentally; but the introduction of the subject in that year 
as a main point in the debates over the admission of Mis- 
souri as a State, aroused the country, in Jefferson's lan- 
guage, "like a fire-bell in the night." 

The North was steadily outstripping the South in popu- 
lation and political representation. In 1790 the diiference 
between the sections amounted to but 7,000 inhabitants, 
with a difference of but four in the number of representa- 
tives in the lower house of Congress. In the census of 
1820 the difference amounted to 600,000 inhabitants 
(5,132,372 as against 4,522,224), giving the North an ad- 
vantage of forty-three representatives in Congress (133 
as against 90). In the Senate the balance between the 
sections had been preserved by the alternate admission of 
States — Louisiana balancing Ohio, Mississippi offsetting 
Indiana, Alabama following Illinois. In 1820, however, 
this equilibrium was threatened ( 1 ) by the fact that Mis- 
souri and Maine, which were then seeking admission, were 
both geographically of the North, though slaves in con- 

WiLLiAM PiNKNEY. Bom in Maryland, 1761; admitted to the bar, 17S6: mem- 
ber of Maryland ratifying convention, 178S; in the legislature, 1788-92, and ex- 
ecutive council, 1792-95; engaged in diplomatic service of U. S. in Great Britain, 
Russia, and Naples, 1796-1804., 1806-11, 1816-18; Attorney-General of Maryland, 
1805; in Maryland Senate. 1812; Attorney-General of U. S., 1812-14; in Congress, 
1815-16; in Senate, 1820-22; died, 1822. 

191 



192 William Pinkney 

siderable numbers were held in Missouri Territor}^^ and (2) 
tliat the preceding Plouse of Representatives, by a vote of 
87 to 76, had inserted a clause in the ^Missouri enabling 
bill prohibiting any further introduction of slaves, and 
granting freedom to children of tliose already there on 
their attaining the age of twenty-five. This bill was lost 
through the Senate striking out that provision and the 
House refusing concurrence (March, 181f)). In the next 
Congress the Senate tacked to the bill admitting free 
]\Iaine a "rider" admitting Missouri without restriction as 
to slavery, but including an amendment offered by Senator 
Thomas of Illinois (reviving an earlier proposition made 
in the House), to prohibit slavery in any other portion of 
the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of 
Missouri. In the end the House yielded: Maine was ad- 
mitted as a State; Missouri was authorized to form a 
constitution without restriction as to slavery; and "slavery 
and involuntarv servitude" in the rest of the Louisiana 
Territor}' north of the parallel 36 degrees 30 minutes was 
"forever prohibited" (March 3, 1820). 

In the debates on this question two speakers stood out 
preeminent — Rufus King, the veteran Senator from New 
York, who favored restriction upon ^Missouri, and William 
Pinkney, Senator from Maryland, who opposed it. King's 
two si3eeches were not reported, but abstracts of them were 
published and widely circulated as part of the public agi- 
tation, which he directed. His main arguments were: (l) 
that slavery might be prohibited in the territories under the 
clause of the Constitution granting power to "make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other 
property of the United States;" and (2) that under the 
power to admit new States, Congress might "make a condi- 
tion . . . that slavery sliall be forever prohibited," — 
the prohibition of slavery in the Old Northwest Territory, 



The Missouri Question 193 

and the exaction of conditions on the admission of Louisi- 
ana concerning jury trial, habeas corpus, and the official use 
of the English language, being cited in proof of the cor- 
rectness of this interpretation. 

William Pinkney was at this time the acknowledged lead- 
er of American lawyers, though he affected "the foppish- 
ness of an old beau, with garments of faultless cut, deli- 
cately tinted gloves to be drawn off and on, and ruffles of 
superfine texture," and labored to give an air of impromptu 
to his most carefully prepared efforts. (Schouler, History 
of the United States, III, p. 158). Like King, he made two 
speeches on the subject. The first, which was never 
printed, was regarded by contemporaries as the most remark- 
able oration of this Congress, and by all odds the most ef- 
fective reasoning on the Southern side. The second speech 
was duly reported, and is given here. 

Perhaps the chief impression gained from the study of 
these rival speeches is that of the inapplicability of an in- 
flexible constitution, interpreted by rigid rules of logic, 
to the changing affairs of human life. 



[William Pinkney, in the Uniled States Senate, February 15, IS-'O.) 

I BELIEVE, Mr. President, that I am about as likely to 
retract an opinion which I have formed, as any mem- 
ber of this bodj^ who, being a lover of truth, inquires 
after it with diligence before he imagines that he has found 
it; but I suspect that we are all of us so constituted as that 
neither argument nor declamation, levelled against recorded 
and published decision, can easily discover a practicable ave- 
nue through which it may hope to reach either our heads or 
our hearts. I mention this lest it may excite surprise when I 
take the liberty to add that the speech of the honorable 
gentleman from New York [Mr. King] upon the great sub- 



194 William Pinkney 

ject with whicli it was jirincipally occupied, has left me 
as great an infidel as it found me. ... I have 
heard the tones of the 'larum bell on all sides, until they 
have become familiar to my ear, and have lost their power 
to appall, if indeed they ever possessed it. Notwithstand- 
ing occasional apiDcarances of rather an unfavorable de- 
scription, I have long since persuaded myself that the Mis- 
souri Question, as it is called might be laid to rest, with 
innocence and safety, by some conciliatory compromise at 
least, by which as is our duty we might reconcile the ex- 
tremes of conflicting views and feelings, without any sacri- 
fice of constitutional principle ; and in any event, that the 
Union would easily and triumphantly emerge from those 
portentous clouds with which this controversy is supposed 
to have environed it. . . . 

Sir, it is not an occasion like this — altliough connected (as 
contrary to all reasonable expectation it has been) with 
fearful and disorganizing theories which would make our 
estimates, whether fanciful or sound, of natural law the 
measure of civil rights and political sovereignty in the 
social state — that can harm the Union. It must indeed be 
a miglity storm tliat can push from its moorings this sacred 
ark of the common safety. It is not every trifling breeze, 
liowever it may be made to sob and howl in imitation of the 
tempest by the auxiliary breath of the ambitious, the timid, 
or the discontented, that can drive this gallant vessel, 
freighted with everything tliat is dear to an American 
bosom, upon the rocks or lay it a sheer hulk upon the ocean. 
I may perhaps mistake the flattering suggestions of hope 
(the greatest of all flatterers, as we are told) for the con- 
clusions of sober reason. Yet it is a pleasing error, if it 
be an error, and no man shall take it from me. I will con- 
tinue to cherisli the belief — in defiance of the public patron- 
age given by the lionorable gentleman from New York, 
with more than his ordinary zeal and solemnity, to deadly 
speculations whicli, invoking tlie name of God to aid their 
faculties for mischief, strike at all establishments — that the 



The Missouri Question 195 

union of these States is formed to bear up against far great- 
er shocks than^ through all vicissitudes, it is ever likely to 
encounter. I will continue to cherish the belief thatj al- 
though like all other liuraan institutions it may for a sea- 
son be disturbed or suffer momentary eclipse by the transit 
across its disk of some malignant planet^ it possesses a 
recuperative force^ a redeeming energy in the hearts of the 
people, that will soon restore it to its wonted calm, and 
give it back its accustomed splendor. On such a subject 
I will discard all hysterical apprehensions — I will deal in 
no sinister auguries — I will indulge in no hypochondriacal 
forebodings. I will look forward to the future with gay 
and cheerful hope, and will make the prospect smile, in 
fancy at least, until overwhelmingly reality shall render it 
no longer possible. 

Sir, it was but the other day that we were forbidden 
(properly forbidden, I am sure, for the prohibition came 
from you [Vice-President Daniel D. Thorapkins]) to as- 
sume that there existed any intention to impose a prospec- 
tive restraint on the domestic legislation of ^Missouri, — a re- 
straint to act upon it contemporaneously with its origin as 
a State, and to continue adhesive to it through all the stages 
of its political existence. We are now, however, permitted 
to know that it is determined by a sort of political surgery 
to amputate one of the limbs of its local sovereignty, and 
thus mangled and disparaged, and thus only, to receive it 
into the bosom of the Constitution. It is now avowed that, 
while Maine is to be ushered into the Union with every pos- 
sible demonstration of studious reverence on our part, and 
on hers with colors flying and all the other graceful accom- 
paniments of honorable triumph, this ill-conditioned upstart 
of the West, this obscure foundling of a wilderness that 
was but yesterday the hunting-ground of the savage, is to 
find her way into the American family as she can, with an 
humiliating badge of remediless inferiority patched upon 
her garments, with the mark of recent, qualified manumis- 



196 William Pinkney 

sion upon her, or rather with a brand upon her forehead to 
tell the story of her territorial vassalage, and to perpetuate 
the memory of her evil propensities. It is now avowed that, 
while the robust District of Maine is to be seated by the 
side of her truly respectable parent [Massachusetts], coor- 
dinate in authority and honor, and is to be dandled into 
that power and dignity of which she does not stand in need 
but wliich inidoubtedly she deserves, the more infantine and 
feeble Missouri is to be repelled with harshness, and for- 
bidden to come at all unless with tlie iron collar of servitude 
about her neck, instead of the civic crown of republican 
freedom upon her brows, and is to be doomed forever to 
leading-strings unless she will exchange those leading- 
strings for shackles. 

I am told that you have the power to establish this odious 
and revolting distinction, and I am referred for the proofs 
of that jDower to various parts of the Constitution, but prin- 
cipally to that part of it which authorizes the admission of 
new States into the Union. I am myself of opinion that 
it is in that part only that the advocates for this restriction 
can, with any hope of success, apply for a license to impose 
it; and that the efforts Avhich liave been made to find it in 
other portions of that instrument, are too desperate to re- 
quire to be encountered. I shall, however, examine those 
other portions before I have done, lest it should be sup- 
posed by those who have relied upon them that what I omit 
to answer I believe to be unanswerable. 

The clause of the Constitution which relates to the ad- 
mission of new States is in these words: "The Congress 
may admit new States into this Union," etc. And the advo- 
cates for restriction maintain that the use of the word 
"may" imports discretion to admit or to reject; and that in 
this discretion is wraj^jDcd up another — that of prescribing 
the terms and conditions of admission in case you are will- 
ing to admit: Cnjus est dare ejus est disponere [he who 
has the power to give, has the power to divide]. I will not 
for the present inquire whether this involved discretion to 



The Missouri Question 197 

dictate the terms of admission belongs to you or not. It is 
fit that T should first look to the nature and extent of it. 

I think I may assume that if such a power be anything 
but nominal it is much more than adequate to the present 
object: that it is a power of vast expansion^ to which human 
sagacity can assign no reasonable limits : that it is a capa- 
cious reservoir of authority, from which you may take in all 
time to come, as occasion may serve, the means of oppres- 
sion as well as of benefaction. I know that it professes at 
this moment to be the chosen instrument of protecting mercy, 
and would win upon us by its benignant smiles: but I know, 
too, it can frown and play tlie tyrant, if it be so disjiosed. 
Notwithstanding the softness which it now assumes, and the 
care with which it conceals its giant proportions beneath 
the deceitful drapery of sentiment, when it next appears 
before you it may show itself with a sterner countenance 
and in more awful dimensions. It is, to speak the truth, sir, 
a power of colossal size, — if indeed it be not an abuse of 
language to call it by the gentle name of a poiver. Sir, it 
is a wilderness of powers, of which fancy in her ha^jpiest 
mood is unable to perceive the far-distant and shadowy 
boundary. Armed with such a power, with religion in one 
hand and philanthropy in the other, and followed with a 
goodly train of public and private virtues, you may achieve 
more conquests over sovereignties not your own than falls 
to the common lot of even uncommon ambition. By the 
aid of such a power, skilfully employed, you may "bridge 
your way" over the Hellespont that separates State legisla- 
tion from that of Congress ; and you may do so for pretty 
much the same purpose with which Xerxes once bridged his 
way across the Hellespont that separates Asia from Europe. 
He did so, in the language of Milton, "the liberties of 
Greece to yoke": you may do so for the analogous j^urpose 
of subjugating and reducing the sovereignties of States as 
your taste or convenience may suggest, and fashioning them 
to your imjDcrial will. There are those in this house who ap- 
pear to think, and (I doubt not) sincerely, that the particular 



198 William Pinkney 

restraint now under consideration is wise, and benevolent, 
and good : wise as respects the Union ; good as respects Mis- 
souri ; benevolent as respects the unhappy victims whom 
with a novel kindness it would incarcerate in the South and 
bless by decay and extirpation. Let all such beware lest, 
in their desire for the effect which they believe the restric- 
tion will produce, they are too easily satisfied that they have 
the right to impose it. The moral beauty of the present 
purpose, or even its political recommendations (whatever 
they may be), can do nothing for a power like this, which 
claims to prescribe conditions ad libitinn and to be compe- 
tent to this purpose because it is competent to all. This re- 
striction, if it be not smothered in its birth, will be but a 
small part of the progeny of that prolific power. It teems 
with a mighty brood, of which this may be entitled to the 
distinction of comeliness as well as of primogeniture. The 
rest may want the boasted loveliness of their predecessor, 
and be even uglier than "Lapland witches." 

Slavery, we are told in many a pamphlet, memorial, and 
speech with which the press has lately groaned, is a foul 
blot upon our otherwise immaculate reputation. Let this be 
conceded: yet you are no nearer than before to the con- 
clusion that you possess power which may deal with other 
subjects as effectually as with this. Slavery, we are further 
told with some pomp of metaphor, is a canker at the root 
of all that is excellent in this republican empire, a pestilent 
disease that is snatcliing the youthful bloom from its cheek, 
prostrating its honor, and withering its strength. Be it so : 
3^et if you liaAC po^ver to medicine to it in the way jDro- 
posed and in virtue of the diploma which you claim, you 
have also power in the distribution of your political alexi- 
pharmics to present the deadliest drugs to every Territory 
that would become a State, and bid it drink or remain a 
colony 'forever. Slavery, we are also told, is now "rolling 
onward with a rapid tide towards the boundless regions of 
the West," threatening to doom them to sterilitv and sorrow 



The Missouri Question 199 

unless some potent voice can saj'^ to it, 'Thus far shalt thou 
go, and no farther." Slavery engenders pride and indolence 
in him who commands, and inflicts intellectual and moral 
degradation on him who serves. Slavery, in fine, is un- 
christian and abominable. Sir, I shall not stop to deny that 
slavery is all this and more: but I shall not think myself 
the less authorized to deny it is for you to stay the course of 
this dark torrent by opposing to it a mound raised up by 
the labors of this portentous discretion on the domain of 
others, — a mound wliich you can not erect but througli the 
instrumentality of a trespass of no ordinary kind : not the 
comparatively innocent trespass that beats down a few 
blades of grass which the first kind sun or the next re- 
freshing shower may cause to sjDring again ; but that which 
levels with the ground the lordliest trees of the forest, and 
claims immortality for the destruction which it inflicts. 

I shall not, I am sure, be told that I exaggerate this pow- 
er. It has been admitted here and elsewhere that I do not. 
But I want no such concession. It is manifest that as a 
discretionary power it is everything or nothing: that its 
head is in the clouds, or tliat it is a mere figment of en- 
thusiastic sj^eculation : that it has no existence, or that it is 
an alarming vortex ready to swallow up all such portions 
of the sovereignty of an infant State as you may think 
fit to cast into it as preparatory to the introduction into the 
Union of the miserable residue. No man can contradict me 
when I say, that if you have this power you may squeeze 
down a new-born sovereign State to the size of a pygmy, 
and then taking it between finger and thumb stick it into 
some niche of the Union, and still continue by way of mock- 
ery to call it a State in the sense of the Constitution. You 
may waste it to a shadow, and then introduce it into the 
society of flesh and blood — an object of scorn and derision. 
You may sweat and reduce it to a thing of skin and bone, 
and then place the ominous skeleton beside the ruddy and 
healthful members of the Union, that it may have leisure 
to mourn the lamentable difference between itself and its 



200 William Pinkney 

companions, to brood over its disastrous promotion, and to 
seek in justifiable discontent an opportunity for separation, 
and insurrection, and rebellion. What may you not do by 
dexterity and perseverance with tJiis terrific power? You 
may give to a new State, in the form of terms which it can 
not refuse (as I shall show you hereafter), a statute-book 
of a thousand volumes, — providing not for ordinary cases 
only, but even for possibilities : you may lay the yoke, no 
matter whether light or heavy, upon the necks of the latest 
I^osterity : you may send this searching power into every 
hamlet for centuries to come, by laws enacted in the spirit 
of prophecy, and regulating all those dear relations of do- 
mestic concern which belong to local legislation and which 
even local legislation touches with a delicate^and sparing 
hand. This is the first inroad. But will it be the last? 
This provision is but a pioneer for others of a more deso- 
lating aspect. It is that fatal bridge of which Milton 
sjDeaks: and when once firmly built, what shall hinder you 
to pass it when you please for the purpose of plundering 
power after power at the expense of new States, as you will 
still continue to call them, and raising up prospective codes 
irrevocable and immortal, which shall leave to those States 
the empty shadows of domestic sovereignty, and convert 
them into petty pageants, in themselves contemptible but 
rendered infinitely more so by the contrast of their humble 
faculties with the proud and admitted pretensions of those 
who, having doomed them to the inferiority of vassals, have 
condescended to take them into their society and under their 
protection ? 

The free spirit of our Constitution and of our people is 
no assurance against the propension of unbridled power to 
abuse, when it acts upon colonial dependents rather than 
upon ourselves. Free states as well as despots have op- 
pressed those whom they were bound to foster; and it is 
the nature of man that it should be so. The love of power, 
and the desire to display it when it can be done with im- 



The Missouri Question 201 

punity, is inherent in the human heart. Turn it out at the 
door, and it will in again at the window. Power is displayed 
in its fullest measure^ and with a captivating dignity, by re- 
straints and conditions. The pruritus leges ferendi [the 
itch for proposing laws] is a universal disease: and condi- 
tions are laws as far as they go. The vanity of human 
wisdom, and the presumption of human reason, are prover- 
bial. This vanity and this presumption are often neither 
reasonable nor wise. Humanity, too, sometimes plays fan- 
tastic tricks with power. Time, moreover, is fruitful in 
temptations to convert discretionary power to all sorts of 
purposes. 

Time, that withers the strength of man, and "strews 
around him like autumnal leaves the ruins of his proudest 
monuments," produces great vicissitudes in modes of think- 
ing and feeling. It brings along with it in its progress new 
circumstances ; new combinations and modifications of the 
old ; generating new views, motives, and caprices, new fan- 
aticisms of endless variety; in short, new everything. We 
ourselves are always changing: and what to-day we have 
but a small desire to attempt, to-morrow becomes the object 
of our passionate aspirations. 

There is such a thing as enthusiasm — moral, religious, or 
political, or a compound of all three; and it is wonderful 
what it will attempt, and from what imperceptible begin- 
nings it sometimes rises into a mighty agent. Rising from 
some obscure or unknown source, it first shows itself a petty 
rivulet, which scarcely murmurs over the pebbles that ob- 
struct its way; then it swells into a fierce torrent, bearing 
all before it; and then again, like some mountain stream 
which occasional rains have precipitated upon the valley, it 
sinks once more into a rivulet, and finally leaves its channel 
dry. Such a thing has happened. I do not say that it is 
now happening. It would not become me to say so. But 
if it should occur, woe to the unlucky Territory that should 
be struggling to make its way into the Union at the moment 
when the opposing inundation was at its height, and at the 



202 William Pinkney 

same instant this wide Mediterranean of discretionary pow- 
ers, Avliich it seems is ours, should open up all its sluices 
and with a consentaneous rush mingle with the turbid waters 
of" the others ! 

"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
Union." It is objected that the word "may" imports power, 
not obligation ; a right to decide ; a discretion to grant or 
refuse. 

To this it might be answered, that power is duty on many 
occasions. But let it be conceded that it is discretionary: 
what consequence follows? A power to refuse, in a case 
like this, does not necessarily involve a power to exact terms. 
You must look to the result Avhich is the declared object of 
the power. Whether you will arrive at it or not may depend 
on yovir will ; but you can not compromise with the result 
intended and professed. 

What then is the j^rofessed result? To admit a State 
into this Union. 

What is that Union ? A confederation of States equal in 
sovereignty ; capable of everything which the Constitution 
does not forbid, or authorize Congress to forbid. It is an 
equal Union, between parties equally sovereign. They were 
sovereign, independently of the Union. The object of the 
Union was common protection for the exercise of already 
existing sovereignty. The parties gave up a portion of that 
sovereignty to insure the remainder. As far as they gave 
it up by the common compact, they have ceased to be sov- 
ereign. The Union provides the means of defending the 
residue: and it is into that Union that a new State is to 
come. By acceding to it the new State is placed on the 
same footing with the original States. It accedes for the 
same purpose, i.e. protection for its unsurrendered sover- 
eignty. If it comes in shorn of its beams, crippled and 
disparaged beyond the original States, it is not into the 
original Union that it comes: for it is a different sort of 
Union. The first was Union inter pares [among equals] : 



The Missouri Question 203 

this is a Union between dispa rates ; betM^een giants and a 
dwai-f ; between power and feebleness ; between full-propor- 
tioned sovereignties and a miserable image of power. — a 
thing which that very Union has shrunk and shrivelled from 
its just size instead of preserving it in its true dimensions. 

It is into "this Union," i.e. the Union of the Federal Con- 
stitution, that you are to admit or refuse to admit: you 
can admit into no other. You can not make the Union, as 
to the new State, what it is not as to the old; for then it 
is not this Union that you open for the entrance of a new 
part)-. If you make it enter into a new and additional com- 
pact, is it any longer the same Union ? 

We are told that admitting a State into the Union is a 
compact. Yes; but what sort of a compact? A compact 
that it shall be a member of the Union as the Constitution 
has made it: you can not new fashion it.- You may make 
a compact to admit; but when admitted the original com- 
pact prevails. The Union is a compact, with a provision of 
political jDower and agents for the accomj^lishment of its 
objects. Vary that compact as to a new State — give new 
energy to that political power, so as to make it act with 
more force upon a new State than upon the old — make the 
will of those agents more effectually the arbiter of the fate 
of a new State than of the old,— and it may be confidently 
said that the new State has not entered into this Union but 
into another Union. How far the ITnion has been varied 
is another question ; but that it has been varied is clear. 

In a word, the whole amount of the argument on the 
other side is. That you may refuse to admit a new State, 
and that therefore if you admit you may prescribe the terms. 

The answer to that argument is. That even if you can 
refuse, you can prescribe no terms which are inconsistent 
with the act you are to do. You can prescribe no conditions 
which, if carried into effect, would make the new State less 
a sovereign State than, under the Union as it stands, it 
would be. You can prescribe no terms which will make the 



204 William Pinkney 

compact of union between it and the original States essen- 
tially different from that compact among the original States. 
You may admit, or refuse to. admit: but if you admit, you 
must admit a State in the sense of the Constitution, a State 
with all such sovereignty as belongs to the original parties; 
and it must be into this Union that you are to admit it, not 
into a Union of your own dictating, formed out of the ex- 
isting Union by qualifications and new compacts altering its 
character and effect, and making it fall short of its protect- 
ing energy in reference to the new State whilst it acquires an 
energy of another sort — the energy of restraint and de- 
struction. 

One of the most signal errors with which the argument 
on the other side has abounded is this of considering the pro- 
posed restriction as if levelled at the introduction or estab- 
lishment of slavert/. And hence the vehement declamation 
which, among other things, has informed us that slavery 
originated in fraud or violence. 

The truth is that the restriction lias no relation, real or 
pretended, to the right of making sialics of those who are 
free, or of introducing slavery where it does not already 
exist. It applies to those who are admitted to be already 
slaves, and who (with their posterity) would continue to be 
slaves if they should remain where they are at present; and 
to a place where slavery already exists by the local law. 
Their civil condition will not be altered by their removal 
from Virginia or Carolina to Missouri. They will not be 
more slaves than they now are. Tlieir abode, indeed, will be 
different, but their bondage the same. Their numbers may 
possibly be augmented by the diffusion, and I think they 
will: but this can only liappen because their hardships will 
be mitigated and their comforts increased. The checks to 
population, which exist in the older States, will be dimin- 
ished. The restriction, therefore, does not prevent the es- 
tablishment of slavery cither with reference to persons or 
place, but sim))ly inhibits the removal from place to place 



The Missouri Question 205 

(the law in each being the same) of a slave, or make his 
emancipation the consequence of that removal. It acts pro- 
fessedly merely on slavery as it exists, and thus acting re- 
strains its present lawful effects. That slavery, like many 
other human institutions, originated in fraud or violence 
may be conceded; but however it originated, it is established 
among us, and no man seeks a further establishment of it by 
new importations of freemen to be converted into slaves. 
On the contrary, all are anxious to mitigate its evils by all 
the means within the reach of the appropriate authority — 
the domestic legislatures of the different States. 

The honorable gentleman on the other side has told us 
as a proof of his great position (that man can not enslave 
his fellowman, in which is implied that all laws upholding 
slavery are absolute nullities) that the nations of antiquity 
as well as of modern times have concurred in laying down 
that position as incontrovertible. 

[Here Mr. Pinkney considered the Roman law, and the 
English Magna Charta (1215), the Petition of Right 
(1628), and the Bill of Rights (1689) with a view to 
showing that they were not adverse to slavery.] 

And here I can not forbear to remark that we 
owe it to that same government, when it stood towards us 
in the relation of parent to child, that involuntary servitude 
exists in our land and that we are now deliberating whether 
the prerogative of correcting its evils belongs to the Na- 
tional or the State governments. In the early periods of 
our colonial history, everything was done by the mother 
country to encourage the importation of slaves into North 
America, and the measures which were adopted by the 
colonial assemblies to prohibit it were uniformly negatived 
by the crown. It is not therefore our fault, nor the fault 
of our ancestors, that this calamity has been entailed upon 
us : and notwithstanding the ostentation with which the loit- 
ering abolition of the slave-trade by the British Parliament 
has been vaunted, the principal consideration which at last 



2o6 William Pinlcney 

reconciled it to that measure was, that by suitable care the 
slave population in their West India islands (already fully 
stocked) might be kept up and even increased without the 
aid of imjiortation. In a word, it was cold calculations of 
interest, and not the suggestions of humanity, or a respect 
for the philanthropic principles of Mr. Wilberforce, which 
])roduced tlieir tardy abandonment of that abominable traf- 
fic* 

Of the Declaration of our Independence, which has also 
been quoted in support of the perilous doctrines now urged 
ujion us, I need not now speak at large. I have shown on 
a former occasion how idle it is to rely upon that instru- 
ment for such a purpose, and I will not fatigue you by mere 
repetition. The self-evident truths announced in the Dec- 
laration of Independence are not truths at all, if taken 
literally; and the practical conclusions contained in the 
same passage of that Declaration prove that they were 
never designed to be so received. 

[The Constitution is next cited as affording evidence of 
a sanction and protection to slavery in the clauses relating 
to the slave trade, the rendition of fugitive slaves, and the 
ratio of representation. Following this are several pages 
of argument to prove that the power to make a compact 
prohibiting slavery in a new State was not among those 
delegated to the Federal government.] 

But it seems, that although the proposed restriction may 
not be justified by the clause of the Constitution which 
gives power to admit new States into the Union, separately 
considered, there are other parts of the Constitution which, 
combined with that clause, will warrant it. And first, we 
are informed that there is a clause in this instrument which 
declares that Congress shall guarantee to every State a 
republican form of government: that slavery and such a 

*The fact that in 1833 Parliament abolished slavery throughout the British 
dominions, with £-20,000,000 compensation to owners, is sufficient refutation of 
Pinkney's charge. 



The Missouri Question 207 

form of govei'nment are incomjDatible ; and finally, as a con- 
clusion from these premises, that Congress not only have 
a right, but are bound to exclude slavery from a new State. 
Here again, sir, there is an edifying inconsistency between 
the argument and the measure which it professes to vindi- 
cate. By the argument it is maintained that Missouri can 
not have a republican form of government, and at the same 
time tolerate negro slavery. By the measure it is admitted 
that Missouri may tolerate slavery as to persons already in 
bondage there, and be nevertheless fit to be received into the 
Union. What sort of constitutional mandate is this which 
can thus be made to bend, and truckle, and compromise, as 
if it were a simple rule of exjiediency that might admit of 
exceptions upon motives of countervailing expediency.^ 
There can be no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions 
of the Constitution. They can not be obeyed by moieties, and 
violated in the same ratio. They must be followed out to their 
full extent, or treated with that decent neglect which has 
at least the merit of forbearing to render contumacy ob- 
trusive by an ostentatious disjjlay of the very duty which 
we in part abandon. If the decalogue could be observed 
in this casuistical manner, we might be grievous sinners 
and yet be liable to no reproach. We might persist in all 
our habitual irregularities, and still be spotless. We might, 
for example, continue to covet our neighbors' goods, pro- 
vided they were the same neighbors whose goods we had 
before coveted: and so of all the other commandments. 

Will the gentlemen tell us that it is the quantity of 
slaves, not the quality of slavery, which takes from a gov- 
ernment the republican form? Will they tell us (for they 
have not yet told us) that there are constitutional grounds 
(to say nothing of common sense), upon which the slavery 
which now exists in ^Missouri may be reconciled with a re- 
publican form of government, while any addition to the 
number of its slaves (the quality of slavery remaining the 
same) from the other States, will be repugnant to that 



2o8 William Pinkney 

form, and metamorphose it into some nondescript govern- 
ment disowned by the Constitution? 

But let us proceed to take a rapid glance at the reasons 
which have been assigned for this notion that involuntary 
servitude and a republican form of government are perfect 
antipathies. The gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Morrill] has defined a republican government to be that in 
which all the men participate in its power and privileges ; 
from whence it follows that where there are slaves, it can 
have no existence. A definition is no proof, however, and 
even if it be dignified (as I think it was) with the name 
of a maxim the matter is not much mended. It is Lord Ba- 
con who says "that nothing is so easily made as a maxim;" 
and certainly a definition is manufactured with equal fa- 
cility. A political maxim is the work of induction, and 
can not stand against experience or stand on anything but 
experience. But this maxim, or definition, or whatever 
else it may be, sets fact at defiance. If you go back to 
antiquity, you will obtain no countenance for this hypoth- 
esis; and if you look at home, you will gain still less. I 
have read that Sparta, and Rome, and Athens, and many 
others of the ancient family, were republics. They were 
so in form, undoubtedly — the last approaching nearer to a 
])erfect democracy than any other government which has 
yet been known in the world. Judging of them also by 
their fruits, they were of the highest order of republics. 
Sparta could scarcely be any other than a rejjublic, when a 
Spartan matron could say to her son just marching to bat- 
tle. Return victorious, or return no more. It was the 
unconquerable spirit of liberty, nurtured by republican 
habits and institutions, that illustrated the pass of Ther- 
mopyla?. Yet slavery was not only tolerated in Sparta, but 
was established by one of the fundamental laws of Lycur- 
gus having for its object the encouragement of that very 
spirit. Attica was full of slaves ; yet the love of liberty was 
its characteristic. What else was it that foiled the whole 
power of Persia at Marathon and Salamis? What other 



The Missouri Question 209 

soil than that which the genial sun of republican freedom 
illuminated and M^armed could have produced such men as 
Leonidas and Miltiades, Themistocles and Epaminondas? 
Of Rome it would be superfluous to speak at large. It is 
sufficient to name the mighty mistress of the world, before 
Sulla gave the first stab to her liberties and the great dic- 
tator [Julius Caesar] accomplished their final ruin, to be 
reminded of the practicability of union between the civil sla- 
very and an ardent love of liberty cherished by republican 
establishments. 

If we return home for instruction upon this point, we 
perceive that same union exemplified in many a State in 
which "Liberty has a temple in every house, an altar in 
every heart" while involuntary servitude is seen in every 
direction. Is it denied that those States possess a republic- 
an form of government? If it is, why does our power of 
correction sleep.'' Why is the constitutional guaranty suf- 
fered to be inactive.^ Why am I permitted to fatigue you, 
as the representative of a slave-holding State, with the dis- 
cussions of the nugoe canora; [fine-sounding trifles] (for 
so I think them) that have been forced into this debate 
contrarj^ to all the remonstrances of taste and prudence? 
Do gentlemen perceive the consequences to which their 
arguments must lead, if they are of any value? Do they 
reflect that they lead to emancipation in the old United 
States — or to an exclusion of Delaware, Maryland, and all 
the South, and a great ]3ortion of the W^est, from the Union? 
My honorable friend from Virginia has no business here, 
if this disorganizing creed be anything but the production 
of a heated brain. The State to which I belong must "per- 
form a lustration" — must purge and purify herself from 
the feculence of civil slavery, and emulate the States of 
the North in their zeal for throwing down the gloomy idol 
which we are said to worship, before her Senators can have 
any title to appear in this high assembly. It will be in vain 
to urge that the old United States are exceptions to the 
rule; or rather (as the gentlemen express it) that they 



2IO William Pinkney 

have no disposition to apply the rule to them. There can 
be no exceptions by implication only to such a rule: and 
expressions which justify the exemption of the old States 
by inference^ will justify tlie like exemption of Missouri 
unless they point exclusively to them, as I have shown they 
do not. The guarded manner, too, in which some of the 
gentlemen have occasionally expressed themselves on this 
subject, is somewhat alarming.. They have no disposition 
to meddle with slavery in the old United States. Perhaps 
not: but who shall answer for their successors.'' Who 
shall furnish a pledge that the principle once ingrafted 
into the Constitution will not grow, and spread, and fruc- 
tify, and overshadow the whole land.'' It is the natural 
office of such a principle to wrestle with slavery, whereso- 
ever it finds it. New States, colonized by the apostles of 
this principle, will enable it to set on foot a fanatical cru- 
sade against all who still continue to tolerate it, although 
no practicable means are pointed out by which they can 
get rid of it consistently with their own safety. At any 
rate, a present forbearing disposition, in a few or in many, 
is not a security upon which much reliance can be placed, 
upon a subject as to which so many selfish interests and 
ardent feelings are connected with the cold calculations of 
policy. Admitting, however, that the old United States are in 
no danger from this principle, why is it so.'' There can 
be no other answer (which these zealous enemies of slavery 
can use) than that the Constitution recognizes slavery as 
existing or capable of existing in those States. The Con- 
stitution, then, admits that slavery and a republican form 
of government are not incongruous. It associates and binds 
them up together, and repudiates this wild imagination 
which the gentlemen have pressed upon us with such an air 
of triumph. But the Constitution does more, as I have 
heretofore proved. It concedes that slavery may exist in 
a new State, as well as in an old one — since the language 
in which it recognizes slavery comprehends new States as 
well as actual. I trust then that I shall be forgiven if I 



The Missouri Question 211 

suggest that no eccentricity in argument can be more trying 
to human patience than a formal assertion that [in] a Con- 
stitution to which slave-holding States were the most num- 
erous parties^ in which slaves are treated as property as 
well as persons, and provision is made for the security of 
that property and even for an augmentation of it by a 
temporary importation from Africa, a clause commanding 
Congress to guaranty a republican form of government to 
those very States, as well as to others, authorizes you to 
determine that slavery and a republican form of govern- 
ment can not coexist. 

I have thus far allowed the honorable gentlemen to avail 
themselves of their assumption that the constitutional com- 
mand to guaranty "to the States a republican form of gov- 
ernment gives power to coerce those States in the adjust- 
ment of the details of their constitutions upon theoretical 
speculations. But surely it is passing strange that any 
man, who thinks at all, can view this salutary command as 
the grant of a power so monstrous ; or look at it in any 
other light than as a protecting mandate to Congress to 
interpose with the force and authority of the Union against 
that violence and usurpation by which a member of it 
might otherwise be oppressed by profligate and powerful 
individuals, or ambitious and unprincipled factions. 

In a word, the resort to this portion of the Constitution 
for an argument in favor of the proposed restriction, is one 
of those extravagances (I hope I shall not offend by this 
expression) which may excite our admiration, but can not 
call for a very rigorous refutation. I have dealt with it 
accordinglv, and have now done with it. . . . 



ir>. DANIEL WEBSTER, of Massachusetts.— REPLY 
TO HAYNE 

(Delivered in the U. S. Senate, January 26; 1830.) 

The first measure passed by Congress after its organiza- 
tion in 1789 was a tariff act, and ever since then the tariff" 
question has played a prominent i^art in American politics. 
Hamilton, in his great report on manufactures (1790), 
urged the application on a large scale of the principle of 
protection to young industries ; but prior to the War of 
1812 the average rate of duty on dutiable goods was only 
about fifteen per cent. The financial and industrial crisis 
of 1818-19, which ended the period of feverish speculation 
following upon the close of the Napoleonic wars in Eu- 
rope, stimulated a new jjrotectionist movement, whose half 
unconscious aim was "to make more easy the transition from 
the state of simple agriculture and commerce which pre- 
vailed before the War of 1812^ to the more diversified con- 
dition which the operation of economic forces was reason- 
ably certain to bring about after 1815." (Taussig, Tariff 
History of the United States, p. 106.) The iron manufac- 
turers of Pennsylvania, and the agriculturists of the Mid- 
dle and Western States, were the chief supporters of the 
new movement, and Henry Clay was its especial champion. 

Daniel Wkbster. Born in New Hampshire, 17,S2; graduated from Dartmouth 
College, 1801; admitted to the bar at Boston, 1805, and entered upon practice at 
Portsmouth, N. H.; member of Congress from New Hampshire, 1813-17; removed 
to Boston, 1817; member of Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, 1820; Con- 
gressman from Massachusetts, 18-22-1828; Senator from Massachusetts, 1828-41, 
and 1845-50; Secretary of State, 1841-45, and 1851-52; died at Marslifleld, Mass., 
1852. 

212 



Reply to Hayne 213 

The attitude of the South was at first friendly to pro- 
tection; but Southern leaders soon saw that taxes levied 
by tlie tariff fell with peculiar weight on the slaveholding 
States, and opposition to a protective tariff became a cen- 
tral feature of their policy. In 1824 a new tariff act was 
passed, largely through the efforts of Speaker Clay, which 
slightly increased the rates of duty, especially on the wool 
which was the raw material of important New England 
manufactures. The passage of the act was resisted by the 
most considerable portion of New England, represented by 
Daniel Webster, and by John Randolph of Virginia, who 
thus expressed the Southern j^oint of view: "'This bill," 
said he, "is an attemjit to reduce the country south of 
JNIason and Dixon's line and east of the Alleghany moun- 
tains to a state worse than colonial bondage. 
The merchants and manufacturers of Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire, the province of Maine and Sagadahoc, repel 
tliis bill, whilst men in hunting shirts, with deerskin leg- 
gings and moccasins on tlieir feet, want protection for 
manufactures. . . . It is a bill, under pretense of 
regulating commerce, to take money from the pockets of 
a very large and (thank God!) contiguous territory, and put 
it into other pockets. I trust at least, if this bill passes, 
there will be a meeting of the members opposed to it, and 
a general and consentaneous resistance to its operation 
throughout the whole Southern country." 

Four years later came the more extreme act of 1828, 
called by its enemies the "tariff of abominations." This 
measure led to the enunciation of Vice-President Calhoun's 
doctrine of Nullification, which taught that the enforce- 
ment of the tariff act might, on grounds of unconstitution- 
ality, be forbidded by any State within its limits. In the 
Senate this doctrine was first explicitly set forth by Robert 
Y. Hayne, Senator from Calhoun's State, in 1830. It was 



214 Daniel Webster 

in reijly to this speech that Webster, who was then in his 
first term as Senator from Massachusetts, delivered what 
may rightly be considered the greatest speech in American 
liistory. 

The circumstances of that debate may briefly be stated. 
In December, 1829, Senator Foote of Connecticut moved 
an inquiry looking to the limitation of the sales of public 
lands to those tracts already in the market. This policy 
was resented by Senator Benton of Missouri as an attempt 
of the East to check the too rapid progress of the West; 
and in the far-ranging debate which followed. Senator 
Hayne sought to win the West to alliance with the South 
by an elaborate attack on the Xew England States. Web- 
ster replied the next day (January 20th) ; and Hayne then 
made a second and more powerful speech (January 24- 
25th) renewing his attack, vaunting the patriotism of South 
Carolina, and setting forth a full exposition of the doc- 
trine of Nullification. With only such immediate prepara- 
tion as he could crowd into a single night, Webster arose 
the next morning and delivered the speech which is here 
given. 

The constitutional position of Hayne may be seen from 
the following extracts : 

"Who then, Mr. President," he inquired towards the close 
of his speech, "are the true friends of the Union.'' Those 
who would confine the Federal government strictly within 
the limits prescribed by the Constitution ; who would pre- 
serve to the States and the people all powers not expressly 
delegated; who would make this a Federal and not a Na- 
tional Union, and who, administering the government in a 
spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing and not 
a curse. And who are its enemies ? Those who are in favor 
of consolidation — who are constantly stealing power from 
the States, and adding strength to the Federal government; 



Reply to Hayne 215 

who, assuming an unwarantable jurisdiction over the 
States and the people, undertake to regulate the whole in- 
dustry and capital of the country. 

"Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South 
Carolina doctrine is the Republican doctrine of '98 [em- 
bodied in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions] : that it 
was promulgated by tlie fathers of the faith — that it was 
maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times 
— that it constituted the very pivot on which the political 
revolution of that day turned — that it embraces the very 
principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the 
Constitution at its last gasp, and which New England 
statesmen were not unwilling to adopt, when they believed 
themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional legislation 
[in the Embargo acts]. Sir, as to the doctrine that the 
Federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent as 
well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to me to be 
utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of 
the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, 
whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with 
this jDower. If the Federal government, in all or any of 
its departments, are to prescribe the limits of its own au- 
thority, and the States are bound to submit to the decision, 
and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for them- 
selves when the barriers of the Constitution shall be over- 
leaped, this is practically 'a government without limitation 
of powers'. The States are at once reduced to mere petty 
corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy." 

^ Of Webster's second reply to Hayne Senator Lodge 
says: "This speech marks the highest point attained by 
^Ir. Webster as a public man. He never surpassed it, he 
never equalled it afterwards. It was his zenith, intellec- 
tually, politically, and as an orator." (Lodge, Daniel Web- 
ster, p. 174<.) The strengtli of the speech lies not in Web- 
ster's treatment of historical questions at issue — for on 



2i6 Daniel Webster 

many of these Hayne was doubtless right — but in the clear- 
ness and nobility of language with which he sets forth what 
the Constitution had then become in the eyes of the people 
of the North. "He defined the character of the Union," 
says Mr. Lodge, "as it existed in 1830, and that definition 
so magnificently stated, and with such grand eloquence, 
went home to the hearts of the people, and put into noble 
words the sentiment which they felt but had not expressed. 
It set forth with every attribute of eloquence the 
nature of the Union as it had developed under the Consti- 
tution. He took the vague popular conception, and gave it 
life and form and character. He said, as he alone could 
sa}^, the people of the United States are a nation, they are 
the masters of an empire, their union is indivisible; and 
the words which then rang out in the Senate Chamber have 
come down through long years of political conflict and of 
civil war. until at last they are part of the political creed 
of every one of his fellow-countrymen." (Lodge, Daniel 
Webster, pp. 179-180.) The appropriateness of Webster's 
opening paragraph, and the biting irony and dignified 
sarcasm with which he repudiated the imputations of his 
opponent, should also be noted. No man perhaps in all 
history ever had in greater measure the physical equipment 
of the orator than Webster ; and in this speech the splendor 
of his language and the nobility of his thought were fully 
equal to the majesty of his manner. 



Reply to Hayne 217 

[Daniel Webster, in tlie U. S. Senate, January 26, 1830.) 

MR. President: When the mariner has been tossed 
for many days, in thick weather, and on an un- 
known sea, he naturally avails himself of the 
first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to 
take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have 
driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this pru- 
dence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this 
debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we 
may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I 
ask for the reading of the resolution. 

[The resolution was then read.] 

We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is, which 
is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily 
occur to every one that it is almost the only subject about 
which something has not been said in the speech, running 
through two days, by which the Senate has been now en- 
tertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every 
topic in the wide range of our public aft'airs, whether past 
or present — everything, general or local, whether belonging 
to national politics, or party politics, seems to have at- 
tracted more or less of the honorable member's attention, 
save only the resolution before the Senate. He has spoken 
of everything but the public lands. They have escaped his 
notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not 
paid even the cold respect of a passing glance. 

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed on Thursday 
morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient 
for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, 
did not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He 
had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge 
it. That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us was 
coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare 
ourselves to fall before it, and die with decency, has now 
been received. Under all advantages, and with expecta- 
tion awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been 
discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to 



21 8 Daniel Webster 

say no more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, 
after all^ either killed or wounded by it^ it is not the first 
time, in the history of human affairs, that the vigor and 
success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and 
sounding phrase of the manifesto. 

The honorable member complained that I had slept on 
his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. 
I did sleep on the gentleman's speech; and slept 
soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of yes- 
terday, to which I am now replying. . . . But the 
gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such 
a reply? . . . He proceeded to ask me whether I had 
turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness 
that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest 
with his friend from Missouri [Mr. Benton]. . . . The 
tone and manner of the gentleman's question . . . had 
an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the 
loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me 
to pass over it without notice. ... It seems to me, 
sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordi- 
nary tone, for the discussions of this body. 

Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more applic- 
able elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies 
than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and 
wliat we are. This is a Senate; a Senate of equals: of men 
of individual honor and personal character, and of abso- 
lute independence. We know no masters : we acknowledge 
no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and 
discussion ; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. 
I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw the 
challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since 
the honorable member has put the question for an answer, 
I will give him an answer; and I tell him that, holding 
myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know 
nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either 
alone or when aided by the arm of his friend from South 
Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever 



Reply to Hayne 219 

opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating when- 
ever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I 
ma}^ see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate. . . . Sir, 
I shall not allow myself on this occasion, I hope on no oc- 
casion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if pro- 
voked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and re- 
crimination, the honorable member may perhaps find that, 
in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows 
to give; that others can state comparisons as significant, 
at least, as his own ; and that his impunity may possibly 
demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he 
may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of 
his resources. 

We approach, at length, sir, to a more important part 
of the honorable gentleman's observations. Since it does 
not accord with my views of justice and policy to give 
away the public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratu- 
ity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what 
ground it is that I consent to vote them away in particular 
instances ? How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these pro- 
fessed sentiments my support of measures appropriating 
portions of the lands to particular roads, particular canals, 
jjarticular rivers, and particular institutions of education in 
the West.'' This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference, 
in political opinion, between the honorable gentleman and 
myself. On my part, I look upon all these objects as con- 
nected with the common good, fairly embraced in its ob- 
ject and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all, if 
good at all, only local good. This is our difference. The 
interrogatory which he proceeded to put, at once explains 
this difference. "What interest," asks he, "has South 
Carolina in a canal in Ohio?" Sir, this very question is 
full of significance. It develops the gentleman's whole 
political system ; and its answer expounds mine. Here we 
differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghany, a canal 
round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the 



220 Daniel Webster 

Atlantic to the western waters^ as being an object large and 
extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common 
benefit. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the 
key to open his construction of the powers of the govern- 
ment. He may well ask what interest has South Carolina 
in a canal in Ohio? On his system, it is true^ she has no 
interest. On that system, Ohio and Carolina are different 
governments, and different countries: connected here^ it 
is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of union, but, 
in all main resjDects, separate and diverse. On that sys- 
tem, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than 
in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out 
his own princijiles ; he does no more than arrive at the 
natural conclusions of his own doctrines ; he only announces 
the true results of that creed, which he has adopted him- 
self, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus 
declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public 
work in Ohio. Sir, we narrow-minded people of New Eng- 
land do not reason thus. Our notion of things is en- 
tirely different. We look ujjon the States not as sepa- 
rated, but as united. We love to dwell on that union, 
and on the mutual happiness which it has so much pro- 
moted, and the common renown which it has so greatly con- 
tributed to acquire. In our contemplation, Carolina and 
Ohio are parts of the same country; States, united under 
the same general government, having interests, common, 
associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the proper 
sphere of the constitutional power of this government, we 
look upon the States as one. We do not impose geograph- 
ical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not 
follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find 
boundaries beyond which public improvements do not bene- 
fit us. We who come here, as agents and representatives 
of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, 
consider ourselves as bound to regard, with an equal eye, 
the good of tlie whole, in whatever is within our power of 
legislation. Sir, if a i*ailroad or canal, beginning in South 



Reply to Hayne 221 

Carolina and ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to 
be of national importance and national magnitude, believ- 
ing, as I do, that the power of government extends to the 
encouragement of works of that description, if I were to 
stand up here, and ask, what interest has Massachusetts 
in a railroad in South Carolina, I should not be willing to 
face my constituents. These same narrow-minded men 
would tell me that they had sent me to act for the whole 
country, and that one who possessed too little comprehen- 
sion, either of intellect or feeling — one who was not large 
enough, both in mind and in heart, to embrace the whole — 
was not iit to be entrusted with the interest of any part. 
Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the govern- 
ment, by unjustifiable construction; nor to exercise any not 
within a fair interpretation. But when it is believed that 
a power does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exer- 
cised for the general benefit of the whole. So far as re- 
spects the exercise of such a power, the States are one. It 
was the very object of the Constitution to create unity of 
interests to the extent of the powers of the general govern- 
ment. In war and peace we are one ; in commerce, one ; 
because the authority of the general government reaches 
to war and pace, and to the regulation of commerce. I 
have never seen any more difficulty in erecting light-houses 
on the lakes than on the ocean ; in improving the harbors 
of inland seas, than if they were within the ebb and flow 
of the tide; or of removing obstructions in the vast streams 
of the West, more than in any work to facilitate commerce 
on the Atlantic coast. If there be any power for one, there 
is power also for the other; and they are all and equally 
for the common good of the country. 

The tariff, which South Carolina had an efficient hand 
in establishing in 1816, and this asserted power of internal 
improvement advanced by her in the same year, and as we 
have seen approved, and sanctioned by her representatives 
in 1824, — these two measures are the great grounds on 



222 Daniel Webster 

which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the 
Union, if she sees fit to break it up I 

I may now safely say_, I tliink, that we have had the 
authority of leading and distinguished gentlemen from 
South Carolina, in supi^ort of the doctrine of internal im- 
provement. I repeat, that, up to 1 824, I for one, followed 
South Carolina ; but, when that star, in its ascension, veered 
off in an unexpected direction, 1 relied on its light no 
longer. 

The strenuous toil of the gentleman has been 
to raise an inconsistency, between my dissent to the tariff 
in 1824, and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. 
With a great majority of the Representatives of Massa- 
chusetts, I voted against the tariff of 1824. . . . But, 
notwithstanding our dissent, the gi-eat States of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, went for the bill, in 
almost unbroken column, and it passed. Congress and the 
President sanctioned it, and it became the law of the land. 
What, then, were we to do.^ Our only option was, either 
to fall in with this settled course of jiublic policy, and ac- 
commodate ourselves to it as well as we could, or to em- 
brace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying 
the statute by State interference. 

The last alternative did not suit our principles, and, of 
course, we adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came 
again before Congress, on a proposition favorable to wool 
and woollens. We looked upon the system of jsrotection 
as being fixed and settled. . . . Because we had 
doubted about adopting the system, were we to refuse to 
cure its manifest defects, after it became adopted, and 
wlien no one attempted its repeal? And this, sir, is the 
inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against the 
tariff of 1824 — but it passed; and in 1827 and 1828, I 
voted to amend it, in a point essential to the interest of 
my constituents. Where is the inconsistency.'' 

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little 
now to say. ... I remarked the other day, that this 



Reply to Hayne 223 

policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, sir. 
New England is charged, with vehemence, as being favor- 
able, or charged with equal vehemence as being unfavor- 
able, to the tariff policy, just as best suits the time, place, 
and occasion for making some charge against her. The 
credulity of the public has been put to its extreme capacity 
of false impression, relative to her conduct, in this par- 
ticular. Through all the South, during the late contest, 
it was New England policy, and a New England admin- 
istration, that was afflicting the country with a tariff beyond 
all endurance; while on the other side of the Alleghany, 
even the act of 1828 itself, the very sublimated essence of 
oppression, according to Southern opinions, was pronounced 
to be one of those blessings, for which the West was in- 
debted to the "generous South." 

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, 
and many and various interests connected with and depend- 
ent upon them, it is not to be expected that New England, 
any more than other portions of the country, will now con- 
sent to any measure destructive or highly dangerous. The 
duty of the government, at the present moment, would seem 
to be to preserve, not to destroy ; to maintain the position 
which it has assumed; and for one I shall feel it an in- 
dispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my 
power, to that degree of protection which it has under- 
taken to bestow. No more of the tariff. 

Professing to be provoked, by what he chose to consider 
a charge made by me against South Carolina, the honorable 
member, Mr. President, has taken up a new crusade against 
New England. . . . For a good long hour or two, 
we had the unbroken pleasure of listening to the honorable 
member, while he recited, with his usual grace and spirit, 
'and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, ad- 
dresses, and all the "et ceteras" of the political press, such 
as warm heads produce in warm times ; and such as it would 
be "discomfiture" indeed, for any one, whose taste did not 
delight in that sort of reading, to be obliged to peruse. 



224 Daniel Webster 

This is his war. This is to carry the war into the enemy's 
country. It is in invasion of this sort, that he flatters him- 
self with the expectation of gaining laurels iit to adorn a 
Senator's brow ! 

Let me observe, that the eulogium pronounced 
on the character of the State of South Carolina^ by the 
honorable gentleman, for her revolutionary and other merits, 
meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge 
that the honorable member goes before me in regard for 
whatever of distinguished talent, or distinguished character. 
South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, 
I partake in the pride, of her great names. I claim them 
for countrymen, one and all. . . . When I shall be 
found, sir, in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to 
sneer at public merit because it happens to spring up be- 
yond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; 
when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the 
homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to 
sincere devotion to liberty, and the country; or, if I see an 
uncommon endowment of Heaven — if I see extraordinary 
capacity and virtue in any son of the South — and if, moved 
by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get 
up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character 
and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth ! 

Sir, . . . let me remind you that in early times, no 
States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and 
feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to 
God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to shoul- 
der they went through the Revolution, hand in hand the 
stood round the administration of Washington, and felt 
his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feel- 
ing, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, un- 
natural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They 
are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never 
scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Mas- 



Reply to Hayne 225 

sachusetts — she needs none. There she is — behold her, 
and judge for yourselves. There is her history: the world 
knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — 
and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, 
falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie 
mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to 
Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where 
American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth 
was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the 
strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If 
discord and disunion shall wound it — if party strife and 
blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it — if folly and mad- 
ness — if uneasiness, under salutary and necessary restraint 
— shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which 
alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, 
by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked: 
it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may 
still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it 
will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monu- 
ments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 

There yet remains to be performed, ]Mr. President, by 
far the most grave and important duty, which I feel to 
be devolved on me, by this occasion. It is to state, and to 
defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the 
Constitution under which we are here assembled. I might 
well have desired that so weighty a task should have fallen 
into other and abler hands. I could have wished that it 
should have been executed by those whose character and 
experience give weight and influence to their opinions, such 
as can not possibly belong to mine. But, sir, I have met 
the occasion, not sought it: and I shall proceed to state my 
own sentiments, without challenging for them any particu- 
lar regard, with studied plainness, and as much precision 
as possible. 

I understand the honorable gentleman from South Caro- 
lina to maintain, that it is a right of the State legislatures 



226 Daniel Webster 

to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government 
transcends its constitutional limits^ and to arrest the opera- 
tion of its laws. 

I understand him to maintain this right, as a right ex- 
isting under the Constitution, not as a right to overthrow it 
on the ground of extreme necessity, such as would justify 
violent revolution. 

I understand him to maintain an authority on the part 
of the States thus to interfere for the purpose of correcting 
the exercise of power by the general government, of check- 
ing it, and of compelling it to conform to their o^^inion of 
the extent of its powers. 

I understand him to maintain that the ultimate power of 
judging of the constitutional extent of .its own authority 
is not lodged exclusively in the general government, or any 
branch of it; but that, on the contrary, the States may law- 
fully decide for themselves, and each State for itself, 
whether in a given case the act of the general government 
transcends its power. 

I understand him to insist that if the exigency of the 
case, in the opinion of any State government, require it, 
such State government may, by its own sovereign authority, 
annul an act of the general government which it deems 
plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 

This is the sum of M'liat I understand from him to be 
the South Carolina doctrine, and the doctrine which he main- 
tains. I propose to consider it, and compare it with the 
Constitution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, 
that I call this the South Carolina doctrine only because 
the gentleman himself has so denominated it. I do not 
feel at liberty to say that South Carolina, as a State, has 
ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she has not, and 
never may. That a great majority of her people are op- 
posed to the tariff laws, is doubtless true. That a majority 
somewhat less than that just mentioned, conscientiously be- 
lieve these laws unconstitutional, may probably also be 
true. But that any majority holds to the right of direct 



Reply to Hayne 227 

State interference, at State discretion, — the right of nullify- 
ing acts of Congress by acts of State legislation, — is more 
than I know, and what I shall be slow to believe. 

What lie contends for is, that it is constitutional to inter- 
rupt tlie administration of the Constitution itself, in the 
hands of those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, 
by the direct interference, in form of law, of the State, in 
virtue of their sovereign capacity. The inherent right in 
the people to reform the government I do not deny : and 
they have another right, and that is, to resist unconstitu- 
tional laws without overturning the government. It is no 
doctrine of mine that unconstitutional laws bind the people. 
The great question is, whose prerogative is it to decide on 
the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws ? 
On that the main debate hinges. The proposition that, in 
case of a supposed violation of the Constitution by Con- 
gress, the States have a constitutional right to interfere and 
annul the law of Congress, is the proposition of tlie gentle- 
man: I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended 
no more than to assert the right of revolution for justifiable 
cause, he would have said only what all agree to. But I 
can not conceive that there can be a middle course between 
submission to the laws when regularly pronounced con- 
stitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, — which is 
revolution, or rebellion, — on the other. I say, the right of 
a State to annul a law of Congress can not be maintained 
but on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist 
oppression ; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution. 
I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the 
Constitution and in defiance of the Constitution, which may 
be resorted to when a revolution is to be justified. But I 
do not admit that, under the Constitution, and in conformity 
with it, there is any mode in which a State government, as 
a member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress 
of the general government, by force of her own laws, under 
anv circumstances whatever. 



228 Daniel Webster 

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this govern- 
ment, and the source of its power. Whose agent is it? 
Is it the creature of the State legislatures, or the creature 
of the people? If the government of the United States be 
the agent of the State governments, then they may control 
it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it: 
if it be the agent of the people, then the people alone can 
control it, restrain it, modify or reform it. It is observable 
enough, that the doctrine for which the honorable gentle- 
man contends, leads him to the necessity of maintaining, 
not only that this general government is the creature of the 
States, but that it is the creature of each of the States sev- 
erally ; so that each may assert the ))ower, for itself, of de- 
termining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. 
It is the servant of four and twenty masters, of different 
wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. This 
absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a misconception 
as to the origin of this government and its true character. 
It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the jjeople's government ; 
made for the people ; made by the people ; and answerable 
to the people. The people of the United States have de- 
clared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We 
must either admit the proposition, or dispute their authority. 
The States are, unquestionably, sovereign so far as their 
sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. But the 
State legislatures as political bodies, however sovereign, are 
yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the people 
have given power to the general government, so far the 
grant is unquestionably good, and the government holds of 
the people and not of the State governments. We are all 
agents of the same supreme power, the people. The gen- 
eral go\ernment and tlie State go\ernments derive their 
authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation 
to the otlier, be called primary, though one is definite and 
restricted and the other general and residuary. The na- 
tional government possesses those powers which it can be 
shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All 



Reply to Hayne 229 

the rest belongs to tlie State governments or to the people 
themselves. So far as the people have restrained State 
sovereignty, by the expression of their will in the Consti- 
tution of the United States^ so far it must be admitted State 
sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not contend 
that it is. or ought to be^ controlled farther. The sentiment 
to which I have referred proponds that State sovereignty 
is only to be controlled by its own "feeling of justice:" 
that is to say^ it is not to be controlled at all; for one who 
is to follow his own feelings is under no legal control. 
Now^ however men may think this ought to be, the fact is 
that the people of the United States have chosen to im- 
pose control on State sovereignties. There are those, doubt- 
less, who wish they had been left without restraint; but the 
Constitution has ordered the matter differently. To make 
war, for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty ; but the 
Constitution declares that no State shall make war. To 
coin money is another exercise of sovereign power; but no 
State is at liberty to coin money. Again, the Constitution 
says that no sovereign State shall be so sovereign as to make 
a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are a 
control on the State sovereignty of South Carolina, as well 
as of the other States, which does not arise "from her own 
feelings of honorable justice." Such an oj^inion, therefore, 
is in defiance of the plainest provisions of the Constitution. 

In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation; 
Carolina, therefore, may nullify it, and refuse to pay the 
duties. In Pennsylvania it is both clearly constitutional 
and highly expedient; and there the duties are to be paid. 
And yet we live under a government of uniform laws, and 
under a Constitution, too, which contains an express pro- 
vision, as it happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the 
States. Does not this approach absurdity.^ 

If there be no power to settle such questions, independent 
of either of the States, is not the whole Union a rope of 



230 



Daniel Webster 



sand ? Are we not tin-own back again precisely upon the old 
Confederation ? 

It is too plain to be argued. Four and twenty interpreters 
of constitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, 
and none with authority to bind anybody else, and this 
constitutional law the only bond of their Union ! What is 
such a state of things but a mere connection during pleas- 
ure or. to use the phraseology of the times, during feeling? 
And that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people, who 
established the Constitution, but the feeling of the State 
governments. 

And now, sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, 
that, at no time, and luider no circumstances, has New 
England, or an}^ State in New England, or any respectable 
body of persons in New England, or any public man of 
standing in New England, put forth such a doctrine as 
this Carolina doctrine. 

No doubt, sir, a great majority of the jDCople of New 
England conscientious!}^ believed the embargo law of 1807 
unconstitutional ; as conscientiously, certainly, as the peo- 
ple of South Carolina hold that opinion of the tariff. 
How did Massachusetts deal with it? It was, as 
she thought, a plain, manifest, palpable violation of the 
Constitution, and it brought ruin to her doors. Thousands 
of families, and hundreds of thousands of individuals, were 
beggared by it. While she saw and felt all this, she saw 
and felt, also, that as a measure of national policy it was 
perfectly futile; that the country was no way benefited by 
that which caused so much individual distress ; that it was 
efficient only for the production of evil, and all that evil 
inflicted on ourselves. In such a case, under such circum- 
stances, how did Massachusetts demean herself? Sir, she 
remonstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself to 
the general government, not exactly "with the concentrated 
energy of passion," but with her own strong sense, and the 
energy of sober conviction. But she did not interpose the 



Reply to Hayne 231 

arm of her own power to arrest the law^ and break the em- 
bargo. Par from it. Her principles bound her to two 
things ; and she followed her principles, lead where they 
might. First, to submit to every constitutional law of Con- 
gress ; and secondly, if the constitutional validity of the 
law be doubted, to refer that question to the decision of the 
proper tribunals. 

Being fully of opinion that the embargo law was uncon- 
stitutional, the people of New England were yet equally 
clear in the opinion — it was a matter they did not doubt 
upon — that the question, after all, must be decided by the 
judicial tribunals of the United States. Before those tri- 
bunals, therefore, they brought the question. . . . The 
established tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, and 
New England acquiesced. Now, sir, is not this the exact 
opposite of the doctrine of the gentleman from South Caro- 
lina.'' 

I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia 
Resolutions of 1798. I can not undertake to say how 
these resolutions were understood by those who passed 
them. Their language is not a little indefinite. In the case 
of the exercise by Congress, of a dangerous power, not 
granted to them, the resolutions assert the right on the part 
of the State to interfere and arrest the progress of the evil. 
This is susceptible of more than one interpretation. It 
may mean no more than that the States may interfere by 
complaint and remonstrance, or by proposing to the people 
an alteration of the Federal Constitution. This would all 
be quite unobjectionable. Or it may be that no more is 
meant than to assert the general right of revolution, as 
against all governments, in cases of intolerable oppression. 
This no one doubts ; and this, in my opinion, is all that he 
who framed the resolutions [Mr. Madison] could have meant 
by it: for I shall not readily believe that he was ever of 
opinion that a State, under the Constitution and in con- 
formity with it, could upon the ground of her own opinion 
of its unconstitutionality, however clear and palpable she 



232 Daniel Webster 

might think the case, annul a law of Congress so far as it 
should operate on herself by her own legislative power. 

I n)ust now beg to ask, sir, whence is this supposed right 
of the States derived? — where do they find the power to 
interfere with the laws of the Union? Sir^ the opinion 
which the honorable gentleman maintains is a notion, 
founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment, of the 
origin of this government, and of the foundation on which 
it stands. I hold it to be a popular government, erected by 
the people; those who administer it, responsible to the peo- 
ple; and itself capable of being amended and modified, just 
as the people mav choose it should be. It is as popular, 
just as truly emanating from the people, as the State gov- 
ernments. It is created for one purpose; the State govern- 
ments for another. It has its own powers ; they have theirs. 
There is no more authority with them to arrest the opera- 
tion of a law of Congress, than with Congress to arrest the 
operation of their laws. We ai"e here to administer a Con- 
stitution emanating innnediately from the people, and 
trusted by them to our administration. It is not the crea- 
ture of the State governments. It is of no moment to the 
argument, that certain acts of the State legislatures are 
necessary to fill our seats in this body. That is not one of 
their original State powers, a part of the sovereignty of the 
State. It is a duty which the people, by the Constitution 
itself, have imposed on the State legislatures ; and which 
they might have left to be performed elsewhere, if they had 
seen fit. So they have left the choice of President with 
electors; but all this does not affect the proposition, that 
this whole government — President, Senate, and House of 
Representatives — is a popular government. It leaves it still 
all its popular character. The governor of a State (in 
some of the States) is chosen, not directly b}^ the people, 
but by those who are chosen by the people, for the pur- 
pose of performing among other duties that of electing a 
governor. Is the government of the State, on that account, 
not a popular government? Tliis government, sir, is the 



Reply to Hayne 233 

independent offspring of the pojjular will. It is not the 
creature of State legislatures ; nay, more, if the whole truth 
must be told, the jDeople brought it into existence, estab- 
lished it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very pur- 
pose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints 
on State sovereignties. The States can not now make war; 
they can not contract alliances; they can not make, each for 
itself, separate regulations of commerce; they can not lay 
imposts; they can not coin money. If this Constitution, 
sir, be the creature of State legislatures, it must be ad- 
mitted that it has obtained a strange control over the voli- 
tions of its creators. 

The people then, sir, erected this government. They 
gave it a Constitution, and in that Constitution they have 
enumerated the powers which they bestow on it. They 
have made it a limited government. They have defined its 
authority. They have restrained it to the exercise of such 
powers as are granted; and all others, they declare, are 
reserved to the States, or the people. But, sir, they have 
not stopped here. If thej^ had, they would have accom- 
plished but half their work. No definition can be so clear, 
as to avoid possibility of doubt; no limitation so precise, as 
to exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this 
grant of the jDeople ? Who shall interpret their will, where 
it may be supposed they have left it doubtful ? With whom 
do they repose this ultimate right of deciding on the powers 
of the government.^ Sir, they have settled all this in the 
fullest manner. They have left it with the government 
itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief end, 
the main design, for which the whole Constitution was 
framed and adopted, was to establish a government that 
should not be obliged to act through State agency, or de- 
pend on State opinion and State discretion. The people 
had had quite enough of that kind of government, under the 
Confederacy. Under that system, the legal action — the 
application of law to individuals — belonged exclusively to 
the States. Congress could onlv recommend — their acts 



234 Daniel Webster 

were not of binding force till the States had adopted and 
sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still? Are we 
yet at the mercy of State discretion, and State construction? 
Sir^ if we are, then vain M'ill be our attem}3t to maintain 
the Constitution under which we sit. 

But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the Consti- 
tution itself, a proper, suitable mode and tribunal for set- 
tling questions of constitutional law. There are, in the 
Constitution, grants of poM-ers to Congress; and restric- 
tions on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions on the 
States. Some authorit}^ must, therefore, necessarily exist, 
having the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the in- 
terpretation of these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. 
The Constitution has itself ^aointed out, ordained, and es- 
tablished that authority. How has it accomplished this 
great and essential end? By declaring, sir, that "the Con- 
stitution and the laws of the United States, made in pur- 
suance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the con- 
trary notwithstanding." 

This, sir, was the first great step. By this the supremacy 
of the Constitution and laws of the United States is de- 
clared. The people so will it. Xo State law is to be valid, 
which comes in conflict with the Constitution, or any law of 
the United States passed in pursuance of it. But who 
shall decide this question of interference? To whom lies 
the last appeal? This, sir, the Constitution itself decides, 
also, by declaring, "that the judicial power shall extend 
to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the 
United States." These two provisions, sir, cover the whole 
ground. They are, in truth, the keystone of the arch. 
With these it is a constitution; without them it is a confed- 
eracy. In pursuance of these clear and express provisions. 
Congress established, at its very first session, in the judicial 
act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and for bring- 
ing all questions of constitutional power to the final decision 
of the Supreme Court. It then, sir, became a government. 



Reply to Hayne 235 

It then had the means of self-protection ; and, but for this, 
it would, in all probability, hare been now among things 
which are past. Having constituted the government, and 
declared its powers, the people have further said, that since 
somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the 
government shall itself decide; subject, always, like other 
popular governments, to its responsibility to the people. 
And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that a State legislature 
acquires any power to interfere? Who, or what, gives them 
the right to say to the people, "We, who are your agents 
and servants for one purpose, will undertake to decide that 
your other agents and servants, appointed by you for an- 
other purpose have transcended the authority you gave 
them!" The reply would be, I tliink, not impertinent: "Who 
made you a judge over another's servants? To their own 
masters they stand or fall." 

And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gentle- 
man's doctrine a little into its practical application. Let 
us look at his probable modus operandi [mode of opera- 
tion]. If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell 
how it is to be done. Now I wish to be informed, how this 
State interference is to be put in practice without violence, 
bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take the existing case 
of the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up 
her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it (as we probably 
shall not), she will then apply to the case the remedy of 
her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass a law of 
her legislature, declaring the several acts of Congress, 
usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they 
respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, 
all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the col- 
lector at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by 
these tariff laws : he therefore must be stopped. The col- 
lector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. 
The State authorities will undertake their rescue ; the mar- 
shal, with his posse, will come to the collector's aid, and 



236 



Daniel Webster 



here tlie contest begins. The militia of the State will be 
called out to sustain the nullifying act. They will march, 
sir, under a very gallant leader: for I believe the honorable 
member himself commands the militia of that part of the 
State. He will raise the nullifying act on his standard, 
and spread it out as his banner ! It will have a preamble, 
bearing. That the tariff laws are palpaple, deliberate, and 
dangerous violations of the Constitution ! He will proceed 
witli this banner flying to the custom-house in Charleston: 

"All the while. 
Sonorous metal, blowing martial soimds." 

Arrived at the custom-Jionse, he will tell the collector 
that he must collect no more duties under any of the tariff 
laws. This he will be somewhat puzzled to say, by the 
way. with a grave countenance, considering what hand 
South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. But, sir, the 
collector would probably not desist at his bidding. He 
would show him the law of Congress, the treasury instruc- 
tion, and his own oath of office. He would say, he should 
perform his duty, come what might. Here would ensue a 
pause: for they say that a certain stillness precedes the 
tem])est. The trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, and 
before all this military array should fall on the custom- 
house, collector, clerks, and all, it is very j^robable some 
of those composing it would request of their gallant com- 
mander-in-chief to be informed a little upon the point of 
law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect for his opin- 
ions as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. 
They know he has read Blackstone and the Constitution, as 
well as Turrene and Vauban [writers on military science]. 
They would ask him, therefore, something concerning their 
rights in this matter. They would inquire, whether it was 
not somewhat dangerous to resist a law of the United States. 
What would be the nature of their offense, they would wish 
to learn, if they by military force and array resisted the exe- 
cution in Carolina of a law of the United States, and it 



Reply to Hayne 237 

should turn out after all that the law was constitutional ? He 
would answer, of course, treason. No lawyer could give 
any other answer. John Fries [leader of a rebellion in 
Pennsylvania, in 1799, against a direct tax levied by Con- 
gress], he would tell them, had learned that some years 
ago. How, then, they would ask, do you propose to defend 
us ? We are not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way 
of taking people off that we do not much relish. How do 
you propose to defend us.^ "Look at my floating banner," 
he would reply; "see there the nullifying law!" Is it your 
opinion, gallant commander, they would then say, that if 
we should be indicted for treason, that same floating banner 
of yours would make a good plea in bar.^ "South Carolina 
is a sovereign State," he would repW. That is true — but 
would the judge admit our plea .^ "These tariff laws," he 
would repeat, "are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, 
dangerously." That all may be so; but if the tribunal 
should not happen to be of that opinion, shall we swing 
for it.'' We are ready to die for our country, but it is rather 
an awkard business, this dying without touching the ground ! 
After all, that is a sort of hemp tax, w'orse than any part 
of the tariff". 

Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a 
dilemma, like that of another great general [Alexander the 
Great]. He would have a knot before him which he could 
not untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to 
his followers, defend yourselves with your bayonets; and 
this is war — civil war. 

The honorable gentleman argues, that if this government 
be the sole judge of the extent of its own powers, whether 
that right of judging be in Congress or the Supreme Court, 
it equally subverts State sovereignty. This the gentleman 
sees, or thinks he sees, although he can not perceive how 
the right of judging in this matter, if left to the exercise 
of State legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the gov- 
ernment of the Union. The gentleman's ojDinion may be 



238 • Daniel Webster 

that the right ought not to have been lodged with tlie gen- 
eral government; he may like better such a constitution 
as we should have under the right of State interference: 
but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of fact; I 
ask him to meet me on the Constitution itself; I ask him 
if the power is not found there — clearly and visibly found 
there? 

If anything be found in the national Constitution, either 
by original provision or subsequent interpretation, which 
ought not to be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. 
If any construction be established unacceptable to them, so 
as to become practically a part of the Constitution, they 
will amend it at their own sovereign })leasure : but while the 
people choose to maintain it as it is, — while they are satis- 
fied with it and refuse to change it, — who has given, or who 
can give, to the State legislatures a right to alter it, either 
by interference, construction, or otherwise ? Gentlemen do 
not seem to recollect that the people have any power to do 
anything for themselves; they imagine there is no safety for 
them, any longer than they are under the close guardian- 
ship of the State legislatures. Sir, the people have not 
trusted their safety, in regard to the general Constitution, 
to these hands. They have required other security, and 
taken other bonds. They have chosen to trust themselves, 
first, to the ])lain words of the instrument, and to such con- 
struction as the government itself, in doubtful cases, should 
put on its own powers, under their oaths of office and sub- 
ject to their responsibility to them: just as the people of 
a State trust their own State governments with a similar 
power. Secondly, they have reposed their trust in the ef- 
licacy of frequent elections, and in their own power to re- 
move their own ser\ants and agents, whenever they see 
cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the judicial 
power, which in order that it might be trustworthy, they 
have made as respectable, as disinterested, and as indepen- 
dent as was practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to 
rely, in case of necessity or high expediency, on their known 



Reply to Hayne 239 

and admitted power to alter or amend the Constitution, 
peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point out 
defects or imperfections. And finally, the people of the 
United States have at no time, in no way, directly or indi- 
rectly, authorized any State legislature to construe or in- 
terpret their high instrument of government ; much less to 
interfere, by their own power, to arrest its course and 
operation. 

If, sir, the people, in these respects, had done otherwise 
than they have done, their Constitution could neither have 
been preserved, nor would it have been worth preserving. 
And if its plain jjrovisions shall now be disregarded, and 
these new doctrines interj^olated in it, it will become as 
feeble and helpless a being as its enemies, whether early 
or more recent, could possibly desire. It will exist in every 
State, but as a poor dependent on State permission. It 
must borrow leave to be; and will be no longer than State 
pleasure, or State discretion, sees fit to grant the indulgence 
and to prolong its poor existence. 

But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. 
The people have preserved this, their own chosen Constitu- 
tion, for forty years, and have seen their happiness, pros- 
perity', and renown, grow with its growth, and strengthen 
with its strength. They are now, generally, strongly at- 
tached to it. Overthi'own by direct assault, it can not be; 
evaded, undermined, nullitiod, it will not be, if we, and those 
who shall succeed us here as agents and representatives 
of the people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge 
the two great branches of our public trust — faithfully to 
preserve and wisely to administer it. 

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dis- 
sent to the doctrines which have been advanced and main- 
tained. I am conscious of having detained you and the 
Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate, with 
no previous deliberation such as is suited to the discussion 
of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of 
which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to sup- 



240 Daniel Webster 

press the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I can 
not, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it without ex- 
pressing once more my deep conviction that, since it re- 
spects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of 
most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. 
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto to have kept steadily in 
view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and 
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union 
we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and 
dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly in- 
debted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. 
That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues 
in the severe school of adversity. It liad its origin in the 
necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and 
ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great in- 
terests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang 
forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration 
has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; 
and although our territory has stretched out wider and 
wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they 
have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to 
us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal 
happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond 
the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess 
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserv- 
ing liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be 
broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang 
over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short 
sight, I can fathom the depth of tlie abyss below; nor 
could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of 
this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on 
considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, 
but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when 
it shall be broken up and destroyed. 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. 
Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant 



Reply to Hayne 241 

that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise. God 
grant, that on my vision never may be opened what lies be- 
hind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last 
time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; 
on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent 
with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! 
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the 
gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe 
erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured — bearing for 
its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as. What is all 
this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, 
Liberty first, and Union afterwards — but everywhere, 
spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all 
its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, 
and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other senti- 
ment, dear to every true American heart — Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! 



IV 



The Contest Over Slavery 

For more than twenty years following the settlement 
of the Missouri question^ the portentous subject of Slavery 
slept an uneasy sleep in the halls of Congress. Then fol- 
lowed a period of gradually increasing intensity of con- 
flict, which culminated in the secession of the South and 
the Civil War. 

The invention of the cotton gin (1793) made cotton 
raising very profitable, and cotton exports rose from 
19,000 pounds in 1791 to 142,000,000 pounds in 1824. A 
new and urgent demand for slave labor thus arose ; and all 
serious thought of emancipation, such as had been cher- 
ished by Jefferson, ]\lason, Wythe, Laurens, and others of 
the best spirits of the South in the first quarter of our 
national existence, died out in the slaveholding sections. 
In its stead came the attitude expressed by Governor Mc- 
Duffie, of South Carolina, in his message to the legislature 
of that State in 1834: "Domestic slavery, instead of be- 
ing a political evil, is the corner-stone of our republican 
edifice. No patriot who justly estimates our privileges 
will tolerate the idea of emancipation, at any period how- 
ever remote, or on any condition of pecuniary advantage 
however favorable." (Von Hoist, Constitutional History 
of the United States, II, p. 118.) This is the position 
which John C. Calhoun makes his own in the first speech 
here given, that of February 6, 1837. 

242 



Contest Over Slavery 243 

In the North, on tlie other hand, the ten years preced- 
ing 1840 saw the formation of near 1,000 abolition socie- 
ties, — local, State, and national, — with about 10,000 mem- 
bers ; it saw also the founding of Garrison's newspaper, 
the Liberator, with its narrow uncompromising demand for 
immediate universal emancipation, its denunciation of the 
Constitution as "a covenant with death and an agreement 
with hell," and the deadly earnestness of its editor, who 
wrote: "I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will 
not retreat a single inch — and I will he heard." Wendell 
Phillips's eulogy of Garrison, which is here given, is in- 
cluded as affording one of the best expositions of the moral 
earnestness of uncompromising abolitionism. More prac- 
tical opponents of slavery also arose, demanding the aboli- 
tion of the inter-State slave trade and of slavery itself in 
the District of Columbia ; while theoretical abolitionists 
and practical anti-slavery men alike combined to nullify 
to a large extent the operation of the Fugitive Slave Act 
of 1793. 

The occasion for the reviving of the slavery discussion 
in Congress in its full intensity was the acquisition of ter- 
ritory from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War. The 
idea entertained by a considerable isection of the North as 
to the motives underlying these territorial acquisitions was 
(as expressed by Lowell in his Bigloiv Papers), — 

"They jest want this Californy 
So 's to lug new slave States in."' 

It was to meet this effort at slavery expansion that the 
famous Wilmot Proviso was first introduced (184<6), de- 
claring that "As an express and fundamental condition 
to the acquisition of any territory , . . neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of the 
said territory." 



244 Select Orations 

In California the jilans of the South were defeated by 
the discovery of gold (1848), which speedily drew into 
that region streams of free population sufficient to war- 
rant the formation of a State, which was committed by 
vote of its own people to freedom. Since the admission of 
Maine and Missouri (1820) the balance between slave and 
free States had been kept even: Michigan (1837) balanced 
Arkansas (1836); Iowa (1846) and Wisconsin (1848) 
balanced Florida and Texas (1845). But the prospective 
admission of California as a free State now threatened 
to disturb permanently this equilibrium, for nowhere was 
there slave territory in the Union from which to form a 
new slaveholding State. 

It was the task of Henry Clay, "the Great Pacificator," 
to combine in the Compromise of 1850 plans for a settle- 
ment of all these questions concerning Slavery whicli were 
felt to be within the range of practical politics. His great 
speech on this subject, therefore, constitutes tlie third selec- 
tion of this division. 

What chance there was of the settlement of 1850 prov- 
ing permanent was thrown to the winds by the passing of 
Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which expressly 
declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 "inoperative 
and void," and proposed to apply the principle of Popular 
Sovereignty, or the vote of the people themselves, to the 
determination of the question of slavery in the Territories 
north as well as south of the line 36° 30'. This act was 
evidently intended to lead to the admission of Kansas as 
a slave State to balance California. "It is safe to say," 
says Mr. Rhodes, "that in the scope and consequences of 
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it was the most momentous 
measure that passed Congress from the day that the Sena- 
tors and Representatives first met, to the outbreak of the 
Civil War. It sealed the doom of the Whig party ; it 



Contest Over Slavery 245 

caused the formation of the Republican party on the prin- 
ciple of no extension of slavery; it roused Lincoln and 
gave a bent to his political ambition. It made the Fugitive 
Slave law [of 1850] a dead letter at the North; it caused 
the Germans to become Republicans ; it lost the Democrats 
their hold on New England; it made the Northwest Repub- 
lican; it led to the downfall of the Democratic party." 
(History of the United States since 1850, 1, p. 490.) 

The desperate efforts of the pro-slavery party, through 
a perversion of Popular Sovereignty^, to make of Kansas a 
slave State, is the theme of Sumner's powerful speech on 
"The Crime Against Kansas" (1856), which constitutes 
the fourth selection here presented. In the end, it may be 
noted, pro-slavery violence and the paltering of Presidents 
Pierce and Buchanan failed of their object; for Kansas 
remained a Territory until 1861, and when it entered the 
Union it came in a free State. 

The next stage of the Slavery contest was opened by 
the Dred Scott decision (^1857), in which the Supreme 
Court — in opinions which neitlier Northern Democrats nor 
Republicans could recognize as permanently settling the 
constitutional interpretation — declared against Douglas's 
doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, and held slavery to be a 
national institution, under the protection of the Constitu- 
tion, which could not be excluded from any Territory, nor 
anywhere except by the action of State legislatures within 
their respective jurisdictions. The discussions to which 
this decision gave rise are illustrated in part by the Lin- 
coln-Douglas debates (1858), of which the speeches of 
the opening debate are here given. 

Out of the dissolution of the Whig party over the slavery 
question came the organization (1854) of the Republican 
party, which in 1856 secured 114 electoral votes for Fre- 
mont as against 174 for Buchanan. The fundamental 



246 Select Orations 

principle of this new party is set forth in Seward's "Irre- 
pressible Conflict" speech of October 25, 1858,— the last 
of the speeches given in this section. 

With the election of Lincoln two years later, on Avhat 
his opponents called a "Black Republican" platform, the 
contest over slavery was transferred from the forum to 
the arena — from the halls of Congress to the battlefields 
of the Civil War. 



16. JOHN C. CALHOUN, of South Carolina.— SLA- 
VERY A POSITIVE GOOD 

(Delivered in the U. S. Senate, February 6, 1837.) 

For .t, quarter of a century John C. Calhoun devoted 
his great intellectual resources to building up the moral 
and constitutional defenses of the South's "peculiar insti- 
tution." Entering Congress as a war Democrat in the ses- 
sion preceding the War of 1812, he for a time showed 
himself a strongly national statesman, favoring the re-es- 
tablishment of the United States Bank, a mildly protective 
tariff, and Federal aid to internal improvements. He was 
elected Vice-President with John Quincy Adams, and was 
re-elected in 1828 with Jackson as the head of the ticket. 
On the passage by a South Carolina convention of the Nul- 
lification Ordinance of 1832, Calhoun resigned his posi- 
tion as Vice-President to take a seat in the Senate, where 
he made himself the head of the opposition to Jackson's 
policy of coercion for South Carolina. From this time 
forward he brought the whole force of his iron will and 
moral energy to the defense of slavery. "More than to 
any other man," says Von Hoist, "the South owed it to 
him that she succeeded for such a long time in forcing the 
most democratic and the most progressive commonwealth 

John Caldwell Calhoun. Born in South Carolina, 1782; grraduated from Yale 
Collegre, 1804; prepared at Litchfield, Conn., for the practice of law; elected to 
the General Assembly of South Carolina, 1808; member of Congress, 1811-17; 
Secretary of War under President Monroe, 1817-25; Vice-President with Presi- 
dents J. Q. Adams and Jackson, 1825-32; resigrned to become Senator from South 
Carolina, serving 1833-4,3, and 1845-50; Secretary of State under President Tyler, 
1844-45; died at Washington, 1850. 

247 



248 Joli" C. Calhoun 

of the universe to bend its knees and do liomage to the idol 
of tliis 'peculiar institution' ; and therefore also the largest 
share of the responsibility for what at last did come rests 
on his shoulders." (Von Hoist, tJohn C. CalJwun, pp. 351- 
52.) He died March 31^ 1850, in the midst of the discus- 
sions leading to the Compromise of 1850, of the principles 
of whicli he disapproved. These words were upon his lips 
at the last: "The South! The poor South! God knows 
what will become of her !" 

The speech which is here given is one of several which 
he delivered in 1836-37 on the question of receiving peti- 
tions in the Senate for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Its chief interest lies in its uncompro- 
mising defense of slavery as a positive good to both the 
white and the black race, — a moral position which under- 
lies and conditions to a large extent the whole subsequent 
attitude of the South, on State Rights, Nullification, and 
Secession. Senator Rives of Virginia, who represented 
the old Jeffersonian school as opposed to the rising school 
of Southern statesmen, took issue with Calhoun on the ques- 
tion of the abstract good of slavery. He said "he did not 
believe slavery to be a good, either moral, political, or 
economical ; and if it depended on him, and there were any 
means of cft'ecting it, he would not hesitate to terminate 
that coexistence of the two races to wliich the Senator from 
South Carolina had alluded, and out of which the present 
state of things had grown." Calhoun in reply "denied hav- 
ing pronounced slavery in the abstract a good. All lie had 
said of it referred to existing circumstances ; to slavery as 
a practical, not as an abstract, thing. It was a good where 
a civilized race and a race of a dift'erent description were 
brought together. Wherever civilization existed, death too 
was found, and luxury; but did he hold that death and 



Slavery a Positive Good 249 

luxury were good in themselves?" {Congressional Debates, 

XIII. Pt. 1, p. 719.) 

The report of Calhoun's speech which follows is taken 
from Cralle's^ Speeches of John C. CaJhonv, pp. Q'l^-QSS, 
as affording a manifestl}^ more correct text than the report 
in the Con<rressional Debates. 



[JoHK C. Calhoun, in the U. S. Senate, February 6, 1837.] 

MR. President: If the time of the Senate permitted, 
I would feel it to be my duty to call for the read- 
ing of the mass of petitions on the table, in order 
that M'e might know what language they hold towards the 
slave-holding States and their institutions. But as it will 
not, I have selected, indiscriminately from the pile, two; one 
from those in manuscript, and the other from the printed, 
and without knowing their contracts will call for the read- 
ing of them, so that we may judge by them of the character 
of the whole. 

[Here the secretary, on the call of Mr. Calhoun, read 
the two petitions.] 

Such is the language held towards us and ours. The 
peculiar institution of the South — that on the maintenance 
of which the very existence of the slaveholding States de- 
pends — is pronounced to be sinful and odious in the sight 
of God and man; and this with a systematic design of ren- 
dering us hateful in the eyes of the world — with a view to 
a general crusade against us and our institutions. This, 
too, in the legislatiye halls of the Union, created by these 
confederate States for the better protection of their peace, 
their safety, and their respective institutions. And yet we, 
the representatives of twelve of these sovereign States, 
against Avhom this deadly war is waged, are expected to 
sit here in silence, hearing ourselves and our constituents 
day after day denounced, without uttering a word; for if 
we but open our lips the charge of agitation is resounded 



250 John C. Calhoun 

on all sides, and we are held up as seeking to aggravate 
the evil which we resist. Every reflecting mind must see in 
all this a state of things deeply and dangerously diseased. 

I do not belong to the school which holds that aggression 
is to be met by concession. Mine is the opposite creed, 
which teaches that encroachments must be met at the be- 
ginning, and that those who act on the opposite principle 
are prepared to become slaves. In this case, in particular, 
I hold concession or compromise to be fatal. If we concede 
an inch, concession would follow concession, compromise 
would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so brok- 
en that effectual resistance would be impossible. We must 
meet the enemy on the frontier, with a fixed determination 
of maintaining our position at very hazard. Consent to 
receive these insulting petitions, and the next demand will 
be that they be referred to a committee in order that they 
may be deliberated and acted upon. At the last session 
we were modestly asked to receive them, simply to lay them 
on the table, without any view to ulterior action. I then 
told the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan], who 
so strongly urged that course in the Senate^ that it was a 
position that could not be maintained; as the argiunent in 
fa\or of acting on the petitions, if we were bound to re- 
ceive, could not be resisted. I then said that the next step 
would be to refer the petition to a committee, and I already 
see indications that such is now the intention. If we yield, 
that will be followed by another, and we will thus proceed 
step by step to the final consummation of the object of these 
petitions. We are now told that the most effectual mode 
of arresting the progress of abolition is to reason it down; 
and with this view it is urged that the petitions ought to 
be referred to a committee. That is the very ground which 
was taken at the last session in the other house, but instead 
of arresting its progress it has since advanced more rapidly 
than ever. The most unquestionable right may be rendered 
doubtful if once admitted to be a subject of controversy, 
and that would be the case in the present instance. The 



Slavery a Positive Good 251 

subject is beyond the jurisdiction of Congress: they have 
no right to touch it in any shape or form, or to make it the 
subject of deliberation or discussion. 

In opposition to this view, it is urged that Congress is 
bound by the Constitution to receive petitions in every case 
and on every subject, whether within its constitutional com- 
jaetency or not. I hold the doctrine to be absurd, and do 
solemnly believe that it would be as easy to prove that it 
has the right to abolish slavery as that it is bound to re- 
ceive petitions for that purpose. The very existence of the 
rule that requires a question to be put on the reception of 
petitions, is conclusive to show that there is no such obliga- 
tion. It has been a standing rule from the commencement 
of the government, and clearly shows the sense of those who 
formed the Constitution on this point. The question on the 
reception would be absurd if, as is contended, we are bound 
to receive. But I do not intend to argue the question ; I 
discussed it fully at the last session, and the arguments 
then advanced neither have been nor can be answered. 

As widely as this incendiary spirit has spread, it has not 
yet infected this body, or the great mass of the intelligent 
and business portion of the North ; but unless it be speedily 
stopped, it will spread and work upwards till it brings the 
tAvo great sections of the Union into deadly conflict. This 
is not a new impression with me. Several years since, in a 
discussion with one of the Senators from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Webster], before this fell spirit had showed itself, I 
then predicted that the doctrine of the proclamation and 
the Force Bill [President Jackson's measures for over- 
coming Nullification, in 1832-33], that this government 
had a right, in the last resort, to determine the extent of its 
own powers, and enforce its decision at the point of the 
bayonet — which was so warmly maintained by that Senator 
— would at no distant day arouse the dormant spirit of aboli- 
tionism. I told him that the doctrine was tantamount to 
the assumption of unlimited power on the part of the gov- 
ernment, and that such would be the impression on the 



252 John C. Calhoun 

public mind in a large portion of the Union. The conse- 
quence would be inevitable. A large portion of the North- 
ern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider 
it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should 
feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continu- 
ance; and that this doctrine would necessarily lead to the 
belief of such responsibility. I then predicted that it would 
commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society; 
and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, 
the weak, the young, and the thoughtless, and gradually 
extend uj^wards till they would become strong enough to 
obtain ])olitical control; when he and others holding the 
highest stations in society would, however reluctant, be com- 
pelled to yield to their doctrines, or be driven into obscurity. 
But 'four years have since elapsed, and all this is already in 
a course of regular fulfilment. 

Standing at the point of time at which we have now ar- 
rived, it will not be more difficult to trace the course of fu- 
ture events now than it was then. They who imagine that 
the spirit now abroad in the North will die away of itself, 
without a shock or convulsion, have formed a very inade- 
quate conception of its real character; it will continue to 
rise and spread, unless prompt and efficient measures to 
stay its progress be adopted. Already it has taken posses- 
sion of the pulpit, of the schools, and to a considerable ex-, 
tent of the press, — those great instruments by which the 
mind of the rising generation will be formed. 

However sound the great body of non-slaveholding States 
are at present, in the course of a few years they will be 
succeeded by those who will have been taught to hate the 
people and institutions of nearly one-half of this Union, 
with a hatred more deadly than- one hostile nation ever en- 
tertained towards another. It is easy to see the end. By 
the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we 
must become, finally, two peoples. It is impossible under 
the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two 
great sections, if the present causes are permitted to operate 



Slavery a Positive Good 253 

unchecked, that we should continue under the same political 
system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union 
asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. 
Abolition and the Union can not co-exist. As tlie friend 
of the Union I openly proclaim it, and the sooner it is 
known the better. The former may now be controlled, but 
in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to ar- 
rest the course of events. We of the South will not, can 
not surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing 
relations between the two races inhabiting that section of 
the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of 
both. It can not be subverted without drenching the coun- 
try in blood, and extirpating one or the other of the races. 
Be it good or bad, it has grown up with our society and in- 
stitutions, and is so interwoven with them, that to destroy 
it would be to destroy us as a people. 

But let me not be understood as admitting, even by im- 
plication, that the existing relations between the two races 
in the slaveholding States is an evil — far otherwise ; I hold 
it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to 
both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the 
fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before 
has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of 
history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized 
and so improved, not only physically, but morally and in- 
tellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded, and 
savage condition ; and in the course of a few generations 
it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions, 
reviled as they have been, to its present comparatively civil- 
ized condition. This, with the rapid increase of numbers, 
is conclusive proof of the general happiness of the race, in 
spite of all the exaggerated tales to the contrary. 

In the meantime, the white or EurojDean race has not de- 
generated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sec- 
tions of the Union where slavery does not exist. It is 
odious to make comparison ; but I appeal to all sides whetlier 
the South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, 



254 John C. Calhoun 

courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which 
adorn our nature. I ask whether we have not contributed 
our full share of talents and political wisdom in forming 
and sustaining this political fabric; and whether we have 
not constanth' inclined most strongly to the side of liberty, 
and been the first to see and first to resist the encroachments 
of power. In one thing only are we inferior — ^the arts of 
gain; we acknowledge that we are less wealthy than the 
Northern section of this Union, but I trace this mainly to 
the fiscal action of this government, which has extracted 
much from, and spent little among us. Had it been the 
reverse, — if the exaction had been from the other section, 
and the expenditure with us, — this point of superiority 
would not be against us now, as it was not at the formation 
of this government. 

But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present 
state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and 
distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as 
well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now 
existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, in- 
stead of an evil, a good — a positive good. I feel myself 
called upon to speak freely upon the subject where the 
honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I 
hold, then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and 
civilized society in which one portion of the community did 
not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad 
and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by his- 
tory. This is not the proper occasion, but if it were it 
would not be difficult to trace the various devices by which 
the wealtli of all civilized communities has been so un- 
equally divided, and to show by what means so small a 
share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was pro- 
duced, and so large a share given to the non-producing class. 
The devices are almost innumerable, from the brute force 
and gross superstition of ancient times, to the subtle and 
artful fiscal contrivances of modern. I might well chal- 
lenge a comparison between them and the more direct. 



Slavery a Positive Good 255 

simple, and j^atriarclial mode by which the labor of the 
African race is, among ns, commanded by the European. I 
may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left 
to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, 
or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sick- 
ness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the 
tenants of the poorhouses in the more civilized portions of 
Europe — look at the sick and the old and infirm slave, on 
one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the 
kind superintending care of his master and mistress ; and 
compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the 
pauper in the poorhouse. 

But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question ; I 
turn to the political ; and here I fearlessly assert that the 
existing relation between the two races in the South, against 
which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most 
solid and durable foivndation on which to rear free and 
stable political institutions. It is useless to disguise the 
fact. There is, and always has been in an advanced stage 
of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capi- 
tal. The condition of society in the South exempts us from 
the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and 
which explains why it is that the political condition of the 
slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet 
than that of the North. The advantages of the former in 
this respect will become more and more manifest, if left 
undisturbed by interference from without, as the country 
advances in wealth and numbers. We have, in fact, but 
just entered that condition of society where the strength 
and durability of our political institutions are to be tested; 
and I venture nothing in predicting that the experience of 
the next generation will fully test how vastly more favor- 
able our condition of society is to that of other sections for 
free and stable institutions, provided we are not disturbed 
by the interference of others, or shall have sufficient intelli- 
gence and spirit to resist promptly and successfully such 
interference. It rests with ourselves to meet and repel 



2^6 John C. Calhoun 

them. J look not for aid to this government^ or to the other 
States : not but there are kind feelings towards us on the 
part of the great body of the non-slaveholding States ; 
but as kind as their feelings may be^ we may rest assured 
that no political party in those States will risk their ascen- 
dency for our safety. If we do not defend ourselves, none 
will defend us ; if we yields we will be more and more 
pressed as we recede ; and if we submit, we will be tramped 
under foot. Be assured that emancipation itself would not 
satisfy these fanatics ; that gained, the next step would be 
to raise the negroes to a social and political equality with 
the whites ; and that being effected, we would soon find the 
present condition of the two races reversed. They and 
their Northern allies would be the masters^ and we the 
slaves ; the condition of the white race in the British West 
India islands, bad as it was, would be happiness to ours. 
There the mother country is interested in sustaining the 
supremacy of the European race. It is true that the au- 
thority of the former master is destroyed, but the African 
Avill there still be a slave, not to individuals but to the com- 
munity, — forced to labor, not by the authority of the 
overseer, but by the bayonet of the soldiery and the rod of 
the civil magistrate.* 

Surrounded as the slaveholding States are with such im- 
minent perils, I rejoice to think that our means of defense 
are ample, if we shall prove to have intelligence and spirit 
and to see and apply them before it is too late. All we want 
is concert, to lay aside all jDarty differences, and unite with 
zeal and energy in repelling approaching dangers. Let 
there be concert of action, and we shall find ample means 
of security without resorting to secession or disunion. I 
speak with full knowledge and a thorough examination of 
the subject, and for one see my way clearly. One thing 
alarms me — the eager pursuit of gain which overspreads 
the land, and which absorbs every faculty of the mind and 

*By the British Emancipation Act, which went into effect in is:u, former 
slaves were to serve as apprentices under their late masters for seven years. 



Slavery a Positive Good 257 

every feeling of the heart. Of all passions avarice is the 
most blind and compromising — the last to see and the first 
to yield to danger. I dare not hope that anything I can say 
will arouse the South to a due sense of danger; I fear it 
is beyond the power of mortal voice to awaken it in time 
from the fatal securitv into which it has fallen. 



17. WENDELL PHILLIPS, of Massachusetts.— EU- 
LOGY OF GARRISON 

(Delivered in Boston, May 28, 1879, at the funeral of Garrison.) 

To THE assertions of the new school of Southern states- 
men that "slavery was a 230sitive good," there was opposed 
the view of a growing minority at the North that in spite of 
Constitution and laws slaveholding was a sin, complicity 
in which could only be avoided by active opposition when- 
ever and wherever met with — an opposition justified by 
the appeal to the "higher law" which overrides mere man- 
made ordinances. From this feeling came the formation 
of the "Underground Railway" to aid slaves escaping to 
Canada; and from it came also the long and relentless 
warfare — as impractical at times as the most doctrinaire 
of Slavery utterances — carried on by the Abolitionists, 
through their press, through the mails, from the lecture 
platform, and in petitions to Congress. 

Foremost among the names of Abolitionists will al- 
ways rank that of William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Mas- 
sachusetts in 1805 and reared in poverty, he was placed as 
an apprentice at the age of fourteen in a printing office, 
and found there his lifelong vocation. For a few months 
(1829) he was associated with Benjamin Lundy in pub- 
lishing the Genius of Universal Emancipation j for a "li- 
bel" in which on a New England shipowner, whom he 

Wendell Phillips. Born in Boston, Mass., 1811; graduated from Harvard 
College, ia«5l; admitted to the bar, 1834: joined in tlie anti-slavery agitation, 1837; 
opposed reelection of Lincoln, 186-1; public lecturer on temperance, woman suf" 
frage, the rights of Indians, prison reform, etc.; died, 1884. 

258 



Eulogy of Garrison 259 

charged with engaging in the slave-trade, he spent six weeks 
in jail. In 1831 he began the publication at Boston of his 
famous periodical, The Liberator. 

In 1835 the English Abolitionist, George Thompson, to 
whom chief credit is due for the emancipation of slaves in 
the British colonies (in 1834), visited Boston; and that city 
was thereupon disgraced by the issuance of the following 
hand-bill : 

"Thompson, the Abolitionist. — That infamous foreign 
scoundrel, Thompson, will hold forth this afternoon at the 
Liberator office. The present is a fair opportunity for the 
friends of the Union to snake Thompson out! It will be a 
contest between the Abolitionists and the friends of the 
Union. A purse of $100 has been raised by a number of 
patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first 
lay violent hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought 
to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be 
vigilant." 

The mob was disappointed in laying hands on Thomp- 
son; but the Liberator office was partially wrecked, and 
Garrison was dragged through the streets with a rope 
around his waist. Nevertheless, he persevered; and 
slowly the movement grew, until the Abolitionists became 
a force to be reckoned with. Well might Calhoun say, 
about 1841: "Of all the questions which have been agi- 
tated under our government. Abolition is that in which we 
of the South have the deepest concern. . . . H is a 
question which admits of neither concession nor compro- 
mise." 

The oration here given was pronounced at the funeral 
.of Garrison, in 1879, by Wendell Phillips, Garrison's 
friend and co-worker, who had begun his labors for Abo- 
lition in 1837, with a notable speech in Faneuil Hall, Bos- 
ton, on the murder of the Abolition printer Lovejoy, who 



26o Wendell Phillips 

had lost his life at Alton, 111., while defending his press 
against a pro-slavery mob. 



IWf.ndf.i.l Phillips, at tlie funeral of Garrison, in Boston. May 28, 1879.] 

IT WAS his [Garrison's] own moral nature, unaided, unin- 
fluenced from outside, that consecrated him to a great 
idea. Other men ripen gradually. . . . This man was 
in jail for his opinions when he was just twenty-four. He 
had confronted a nation in the very bloom of his youth. . . . 
Think of the mere dates ; think that at some twenty-four 
years old, while Christianity and statesmanship, the experi- 
ence, the genius of the land, were wandering in the desert, 
aghast, amazed, and confounded over a frightful evil, a 
great sin, this boy sounded, found, invented the talisman, 
"Immediate, unconditional emancipation on the soil." . . . 

A year afterwards, with equally single-hearted devotion, 
in words that have been so often quoted, with those dungeon 
doors behind him, he enters on his career. In January, 
1831, then twenty-five years old, he starts the publication of 
The Liberator, advocating the immediate abolition of sla- 
very, and with the sublime pledge: "I will be as harsh as 
truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I 
do not wish to speak or write with moderation. I will not 
equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single 
inch — and I will he heard." 

Then began an agitation which for the marvel of its 
origin, the majesty of its purpose, the earnestness, unselfish- 
ness, and ability of its appeals, the vigor of its assault, the 
deep national convulsion it caused, the vast and beneficent 
changes it wrought, and its wide-spread, indirect influence 
on all kindred moral questions, is without a parallel in his- 
tory since Luther. This boy created and marshalled it. His 
converts held it up and carried it on. Before this, all 
through the preceding century, there had been among us 
scattered and single abolitionists, earnest and able men ; 
sometimes, like [George] Wythe of Virginia, in high places. 



Eulogy of Garrison 261 

The Quakers and Covenanters had never intermitted 
their testimony against slavery. But Garrison was the first 
man to begin a movement designed to annihilate slavery. 
He announced the principle, arranged the method, gathered 
the forces, enkindled the zeal, started the argument, and 
finally marshalled the nation for and against the system in 
a conflict that came near rending the Union. 

I marvel again at the instinctive sagacity which discerned 
the hidden forces fit for such a movement, called them forth, 
and wielded them to such prompt results. . . . O'Con- 
nell* leaned back on three millions of Irishmen, all on fire 
with sympathy. Cobden'sf hands were held up by the 
whole manufacturing interests of Great Britain. His treas- 
ury was the wealth of the middle classes of the country ; 
and behind him also, in fair proportion, stood the religious 
convictions of England. Marvelous was their agitation. 
As you gaze upon it in successive stages, and analyze it, 
you are astonished at what they invented for tools. But 
this boy stood alone, — utterly alone, at first. There was no 
sympathy anywhere; his hands were empty; one single 
penniless comrade was his only helper. Starving on bread 
and water, he could command the use of types ; that was all. 
Trade endeavored to crush him ; the intellectual life of 
America disowned him. 

M}^ friend Weld has said the churcli was a tliick bank 
of black cloud looming over him. Yes. But no sooner did 
the church discern the impetuous boy's purpose than out 
of that dead sluggish cloud thundered and lightened a ma- 
lignity which could not find words to express its hate. 
A mere boy confronts church, commerce, and col- 
lege,- — a boy with neither training nor experience ! Almost 
at once the assault tells : the whole country is hotly inter- 
ested. . . . He had no means. Where he got, whence 

*Daniel O'Connell, the sreat Irish agitator, who won for Catholics admission 
to the British House of Commons, in lSi9. 

tRichard Cobden headed the movement which secured the repeal of the Corn 
Laws and the adoption of free trade by Great Britain, in 1846. 



262 Wendell Phillips 

he summoned, how he created, the elements which changed 
1830 into 1835 — 1830 apathy, indifference, ignorance, ice- 
bergs, into 1835, every man intelligently hating him, and 
mobs assaulting him in every city — is a marvel which none 
but older men than I can adequately analyze and explain. 
He said to a friend who remonstrated with him on the heat 
and severit}^ of his language, "Brother, I have need to be 
all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt." 
Well, that dungeon of 1830, that universal apathy, that 
deadness of soul, that contempt of what called itself in- 
tellect, in ten years he changed into the whole country 
aflame. He made every single home, ijress, pulpit, and sen- 
ate-chamber a debating society, with his right and wrong 
for the subject. And, as was said of Luther, "God hon- 
ored him by making all the worst men his enemies." . . . 
^Malignity searched him witli candles from the moment he 
uttered that God-given solution of the problem to the mo- 
ment when he took the hand of the nation and wrote out 
the statute which made it law. . . . No man, liowever 
mad with hate, however fierce in assault, ever dared to 
hint that there was anything low in motive, false in asser- 
tion, selfish in purpose, dishonest in method, — never a stain 
on the thought, the word, or the deed. 

Then look at the work he did. ]\Iy friends have spoken 
of his influence. What American ever held his hand so 
long and so powerfully on the helm of social, intellectual, 
and moral America? There have been giants in our day. 
Great men God has granted in widely different spheres, 
— earnest men, men whom public admiration lifted early 
into power. I shall venture to name some of them. Per- 
haps you will say it is not usual on an occasion like this; 
but long-waiting truth needs to be uttered in an hour when 
this great example is still absolutely indispensable to inspire 
the effort, to guide the steps, to cheer the hope, of the na- 
tion not yet arrived in the promised land. I want to show 
you the vast breadth and depth that this man's name signi- 
fies. We have had Webster in the Senate; we have had 



Eulogy of Garrison 263 

Lyman Beecher in the pulpit; we have had Calhoun at the 
head of a section; we have had a philosopher at Concord 
[Emerson] with his inspiration penetrating the young mind 
of the Northern States. They are the four men that his- 
tory, perhaps, will mention somewhere near the great force 
whose closing in this scene we commemorate today. Re- 
member now not merely the inadequate means at this man's 
control, not simply the bitter hate that he confronted, not 
the vast work that he must be allowed to have done, — surely 
vast, when measured by the opposition he encountered and 
the strength he held in his hands, — but dismissing all those 
considerations, measuring nothing but the breadth and depth 
of his hold, his grasp on American character, social change, 
and general progress, what man's signet has been set so 
deep, planted so forever on the thoughts of his epoch.'* 
Trace home intelligently, trace home to their sources, the 
changes, social, political, intellectual, and religious, that 
have come over us during the last fifty years, — the volcanic 
convulsions, the stormy waves which have tossed and rocked 
our generation, — and you will find close at the sources of 
the Mississippi this boy with his proclamation ! 

The great party that put on record the statute of free- 
dom was made up of men whose conscience he quickened 
and whose intellect he inspired, and they long stood the 
tools of a public opinion that he created. The grandest 
name beside his in the America of our times is that of John 
Brown. Brown stood on the platform that Garrison built; 
and Mrs. Stowe herself charmed an audience that he 
gathered for her, with words which he inspired, from a 
heart that he kindled. Sitting at his feet were leaders 
born of The Liberator, the guides of public sentiment. 
I know whereof I affirm. It was often a pleasant boast of 
Charles Sumner that he read The Liberator two years be- 
fore I did; and, among the great men who followed his 
lead and held up his hands in Massachusetts, where is the 
intellect, where is the heart, that does not trace to this print- 
er-boy the first pulse that bade him serve the slave? For 



264 Wendell Phillips 

myself, no words can adequately tell the measureless debt 
I owe him, the moral and intellectual life he opened to me. 
I feel like the old Greek who, taught himself by Socrates, 
called his own scholars "the disciples of Socrates." 

This is only another instance added to the roll of the 
Washingtons and the Hampdens, whose root is not ability, 
but character; that influence which, like the great Master's 
of Judea (humanly speaking), spreading through the cen- 
turies, testifies that the world suffers its grandest changes 
not by genius, but by the more potent control of character. 
His was an earnestness that would take no denial, that con- 
sumed ojiposition in the intensity of its convictions, that 
knew nothing but right. As friend after friend gathered 
slowly, one by one, to his side, in that very meeting of a 
dozen heroic men to form the New England Anti-slavery 
Society, it was his compelling hand, his resolute unwilling- 
ness to temper or qualify the utterance, that finally dedi- 
cated that first organized movement to the doctrine of im- 
mediate emancipation. He seems to have understood, — 
this boy wuthout experience,^ — he seems to have understood 
by instinct that righteousness is the only thing which will 
finally compel submission ; that one with God is always a 
majority. He seems to have known it at the very outset, 
taught of God, the herald and champion, God-endowed and 
God-sent to arouse a nation, that only by the most absolute 
assertion of the uttermost truth, without qualification or 
compromise, can a nation be waked to conscience or 
strengthened for duty. No man ever understood so thor- 
oughly — not O'Connell nor Cobden — the nature and needs 
of that agitation which alone, in our day, reforms states. 
In tlie darkest hour he never doubted the omnipotence of 
conscience and the moral sentiment. 

And then look at the unquailing courage with which he 
faced the successive obstacles that confronted him ! Modest, 
believing at the outset that America could not be as corrupt 
as she seemed, he waits at the door of the churches, impor- 
tunes leading clergymen, begs for a voice from the sane- 



Eulogy of Garrison 265 

tuary, a consecrated protest from the pulpit. To his utter 
amazement, he learns by thus probing it that the Church 
will give him no help, but on the contrary surges into the 
movement in opposition. Serene, though astounded by the 
unexpected revelation, he simply turns his footsteps, and 
announces that "a Christianity which keeps peace with the 
oppressor is no Christianity," and goes on his way to sup- 
plant the religious element which the Church had allied 
with sin by a deeper religious faith. Yes, he sets himself 
to work — this stripling with his sling confronting the angry 
giant in complete steel, this solitary' evangelist — to make 
Christians of twenty millions of people. 

If anything strikes one more prominently than another 
in this career, — to your astonishment, young men, you may 
say, — it is the plain, sober common sense, the robust Eng- 
lish element which underlay Cromwell, which explains 
Hampden, which gives the color that distinguishes iGtO 
in England from 1790 in France. Plain, robust, well-bal- 
anced common sense. Nothing erratic ; no enthusiasm 
which had lost its hold on firm earth ; no mistake of method ; 
no unmeasured confidence ; no miscalculation of the enemy's 
strength. Whoever mistook, Garrison seldom mistook. 
Fewer mistakes in that long agitation of fifty years can be 
charged to his account than to any other American. Erratic 
as men supposed him, intemperate in utterance, mad in 
judgment, an enthusiast gone crazy; the moment you sat 
down at his side, patient in explanation, clear in statement, 
sound in judgment, studying carftfully every step, calculat- 
ing every assault, measuring the force to meet it, never in 
haste, always patient, waiting until the time ripened, — fit 
for a great leader. Cull, if you please, from the statesmen 
who obeyed him, whom he either whipped into submission or 
summoned into existence, — cull from among them the man 
whose career, fairly examined, exhibits fewer miscalcula- 
tions and fewer mistakes than this career which is just 
ended. . . . ^\lien history seeks the sources of New 
England character, when men begin to open up and examine 



266 Wendell Phillips 

the hidden springs and note the convulsions and the throes 
of American life within the last half-century, they will re- 
member Parker, that Jupiter of the pulpit; they will re- 
member the long imheeded but measureless influence that 
came to us from the seclusion of Concord; they will do jus- 
tice to the masterly statesmanship which guided, during a 
part of his life, the efforts of Webster. But they will 
recognize that there was only one man north of Mason 
and Dixon's line who met squarely, with an absolute logic, 
the else impregnable position of John C. Calhoun; only one 
brave, far-sighted, keen, logical intellect, which discerned 
that there were only two moral points in the universe, right 
and wi'ong; that, when one was asserted, subterfuge and 
evasion would be sure to end in defeat. 

Here lies the brain and the heart ; here lies the states- 
manlike intellect, logical as Jonathan PMwards, brave as 
Luther, which confronted the logic of South Carolina with 
an assertion direct and broad enough to make an issue and 
necessitate a conflict of two civilizations. Calhoun said. 
Slavery is right. Webster and Clay shrunk from him, and 
evaded his assertion. Garrison, alone at that time, met 
him face to face, proclaiming slavery a sin and daring all 
the inferences. 



18. HENRY CLAY, of Kentucky.— THE COMPRO- 
MISE OF 1850 

(Delivered in the U. S. Senate, February 5 and 6, 1850.) 

Henry Clay won the title of "the Great Pacificator" by 
the three comiiromises which he originated in the endeavor 
to adjust the ever recurring disputes over Slavery. 

( 1 ) When Missouri presented itself for admission to 
the Union in 1821, with a constitution which prohibited free 
negroes from entering the State, it was Clay who quelled 
the newly arisen storm by drafting a resolution admitting 
the State on condition that its legislature, "by a solemn 
public act," bind itself not to pass the obnoxious constitu- 
tional provision into legislation. 

(2) When South Carolina nullifiers and the Federal 
government as vested in Andrew Jackson were on the verge 
of armed collision in 1833, over the collection in South Caro- 
lina of protective tariff duties. Clay for a second time came 
forward and secured the passage of a compromise tariff 
(1833) which removed particular grounds of complaint and 
thus deferred the occasion for testing Nullification. 

(3) For the last time, in 1850, Clay endekvored to save 
the Union, "upon a fair equality and just basis," by com- 
prehending in a single series of measures "all questions of 

Henry Clay. Born in Virginia, 1777; admitted to the bar and removed to 
Lexington, Ky., 1797; served for seven sessions in the Kentucky State legislature; 
in United States Senate, filling unexpired terms, 1806-07, and 1809-11; in House 
of Representatives, 1811-13 and 18l5-'2.5, serving as Speaker of the House for thir- 
teen years; Peace Commissioner at Ghent, 1814: Secretary of State, 18'25-:^9; in 
Senate, 1831-42 and 1849-52; unsuccessful candidate for Presidency, 1824, 1832 
1844; died, 1852. 

267 



268 Henry Clay 

controversy between [the States] arising out of the insti- 
tution of slavery. " 

His propositions were introduced into the Senate on Jan- 
uary 29, 1850, in a series of eight resolutions. The first 
provided for the admission of California without restriction 
as to slavery. The second declared, "That as slavery does 
not exist by law and is not likely to be introduced into any 
of the territory acquired from the Republic of Mexico, it 
is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its 
introduction into or its exclusion from any part of the said 
territory." The third proposed a compromise settlement of 
the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, which was in 
dispute. By the fourth the United States was to provide 
for the ))ayment of the public debt of Texas, contracted 
prior to annexation, for which the duties on foreign imports 
had been pledged while that State was independent, on 
condition that Texas formally relinquish her claim to any 
part of New Mexico. The fifth declared the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia to be "inexpedient," 
except with the consent of Maryland, of the people of the 
district, and with just compensation to owners of slaves. 
The sixth read: "That it is expedient to prohibit within 
the District the trade in slaves brought into it from States 
or places beyond the limits of the District, either to be sold 
therein as merchandise or to be transported to other mar- 
kets without the District of Columbia." The seventh pro- 
vided for a more effectual Fugitive Slave law. And the 
eighth declared that Congress has no power over the inter- 
State slave trade. 

Clay was now seventy-three years old, and had laid 
aside his cherished ambition to become President. He was 
himself a Southerner and a slaveholder, but his attitude 
on slavery as an institution was thus declared in these de- 
bates : "I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to 



Compromise of 1850 269 

the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to 
vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery 
where it had not before existed^ either south or north of 
the Missouri Compromise line. ... If the citizens of 
those Territories choose to establish slavery, and if they 
come here with constitutions establishing slavery, I am for 
admitting them with such provisions in their constitutions; 
but then it will be their work and not ours, and their pos- 
terity will have to reproach them and not us for forming 
constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist 
among them." (Colton, Life, Correspondence, and Speeches 
of Henry Clay, III, pp. 127-28.) 

Clay's endeavors in behalf of these compromise reso- 
lutions were the last great effort of his life, and sensibly 
contributed to its decline and end. Besides his great speech 
of February 5th and 6th, which is here given. Clay spoke 
many times during the course of the long discussions to 
which his resolutions gave rise. Into the vicissitudes 
(which were many) to which they were subjected, we can 
not here go; it suffices to say that in the end all of Clay's 
propositions, except those which were merely declaratory 
(the second, the fifth, and the eighth), were enacted into 
law. 

Of Clay's power as an orator, IVIr. Rhodes says: "He 
was a persuasive speaker, his magnetism was great; the im- 
passioned utterance and the action suited to the word 
aroused the enthusiasm of the moment^ and carried every- 
thing resistlessly before him, whether he addressed the tu- 
multuous mass-meeting or his cultured audience of the 
Senate. . . . His speeches in print convey no idea 
of the effect of their delivery, and in the reading one loses 
the whole force of his fine physical presence, and fails to 
appreciate the strength derived from his supremely nervous 



270 Henry Clay 

tempermanent." (Histori/ of the United States from 1850, 
I, p. 123.) 



[Henry Clay, in the U. S. Senate, February 5 and 6, 1830.] 

MR. President : Never on any former occasion have 
I have seen many periods of great anxiety, of 
I risen under feelings of such painful solicitude, 
peril, and of danger in this country, and I have never be- 
fore risen to address any assemblage so oppressed, so ap- 
palled, and so anxious; and, sir, I hope it will not be out 
of place to do here, what again and again I have done in 
my private chamber, to implore of Him who holds the 
destinies of nations and individuals in His hands, to be- 
stow upon our country His blessings, to calm the violence 
and rage of jiarty, to still passion, to allow reason once 
more to resume its empire. ... I know, sir, the jeal- 
ousies, the fears, the apprehensions which are engendered 
by the existence of that party spirit to which I have re- 
ferred; but if there be in my hearing now, in or out of this 
Capitol, any one who hopes, in his race for honors and ele- 
vation, for higher honors and higher elevation than that 
which he now occupies, I beg him to believe that I, at least, 
will never jostle him in the pursuit of those honors or that 
elevation. I beg him to be perfectly persuaded that, if my 
wishes prevail, my name shall never be used in competition 
with his. I beg to assure him that when my service is termi- 
nated in this body, my mission, so far as respects the public 
affairs of this world and upon this earth, is closed, and 
closed, if my wishes prevail, forever. 

From the beginning of the session to the present time 
my thoughts have been anxiously directed to the object of 
finding some plan, of proposing some mode of accomoda- 
tion which would once more restore the blessings of con- 
cord, harmony, and peace to this great country. I am not 
vain enough to suppose that I have been successful in the 
accomplishment of this object, but I have presented a 



Compromise of 1850 271 

scheme ; and allow me to say to honorable Senators that, if 
they find in that plan anything that is defective, if they 
find in it anything that is worthy of acceptance, but is sus- 
ceptible of improvement by amendment, it seems to me that 
the true and patriotic course is not to denounce it, but to 
improve it — not to reject without examination any project 
of accommodation having for its object the restoration of 
harmony in this country, but to look at it to see if it be 
susceptible of elaboration or improvement, so as to accom- 
plish the object which I indulge the hope is common to all 
and every one of us, to restore peace and quiet, and harmony 
and happiness to this country. 

Sir, when I came to consider this subject, there were two 
or three general purposes which it seemed to me to be most 
desirable, if possible, to accomplish. The one was, to settle 
all the controverted questions arising out of the subject of 
slavery. It seemed to me to be doing rery little if we set- 
tled one question and left other distracting questions unad- 
justed; it seemed to me to be doing but little if we stopped 
one leak only in the ship of State, and left other leaks 
capable of producing danger, if not destruction, to the 
vessel. I therefore turned my attention to every subject 
connected with the institution of slavery, and out of which 
controverted questions had sprung, to see if it were pos- 
sible or practicable to accommodate and adjust the whole 
of them. Another principal object which attracted my at- 
tention was, to endeavor to form such a scheme of accom- 
modation that neither of the two classes of States into 
which our country is so unhappily divided should make any 
sacrifice of any great principle. I believe, sir, the series 
of resolutions which I have had the honor to present to the 
Senate accomplishes that object. 

Sir, another purpose which I have had in view was this: 
I was aware of the difference of opinion prevailing be- 
tween these two classes of States. I was aware that, while 
one portion of the Union was pushing matters, as it seemed 
to me, to the greatest extremity, another portion of the 



272 Henry Clay 

Union was pushing them to an opposite, perhaps not less 
dangerous extremity. It appeared to me, then, that if any 
arrangement, any satisfactory adjustment could be made of 
the controverted questions between the two classes of 
States, that adjustment, that arrangement, could only be 
successful and effectual by extracting from both parties 
some concession — not of principle, not of principle at all, 
but of feeling, of opinion, in relation to matters in contro- 
versy between them. Sir, I believe the resolutions which 
I have prepared fulfill that object. I believe, sir, that you 
will find, upon that careful, rational, and attentive examina- 
tion of them which I think they deserve, that neither party 
in some of them make any concession at all; in others the 
concessions of forbearance are mutual ; and in the third 
place, in reference to the slaveholding States, there are 
resolutions making concessions to them by the opposite class 
of States, without any compensation whatever being ren- 
dered by them to the non-slaveholding States. I think 
every one of these characteristics which I have assigned, and 
the measures which I proposed, is susceptible of clear and 
satisfactory' demonstration by an attentive perusal and crit- 
ical examination of the resolutions themselves. Let us take 
up the first resolution. 

The first resolution, Mr. President, as you are aware, 
relates to California, and it declares that California, with 
suitable limits, ought to be admitted as a member of this 
Union, without the imposition of any restriction either to 
interdict or to introduce slavery within her limits. Well, 
now, is there any concession in tliis resolution by either 
party to the other ? I know that gentlemen who come from 
slaveholding States saj^ the North gets all that it desires; 
but by whom does it get it? Does it get it by any action 
of Congress? If slavery be interdicted within the limits of 
California, has it been done by Congress — by this govern- 
ment? No, sir. That interdiction is imposed by Califor- 
nia herself. And has it not been the doctrine of all parties 
that when a State is about to be admitted into the Union, 



Compromise of 1850 273 

the State has a right to decide for itself whether it will or 
will not have slavery within its limits ? 

Mr. President, the next resolution in the series which I 
have offered I beg gentlemen candidly now to look at. I 
was aware, perfectly aware, of the perseverance with which 
the Wilmot proviso was insisted upon. I knew that every 
one of the free States in this Union, without exception, had 
by its legislative body passed resolutions instructing their 
Senators and requesting their Representatives to get that 
restriction incorporated in any Territorial government which 
might be established under the auspices of Congress. I 
knew how much, and I regretted how much, the free States 
had put their hearts upon the adoption of this measure. In 
the second resolution I call upon them to waive persisting 
in it. I ask them, for the sake of peace and in the spirit of 
mutual forbearance to other members of the Union, to give 
it up — to no longer insist upon it — to see, as they must see, 
if their eyes are open, the dangei's which lie ahead, if they 
persevere in insisting upon it. 

When I called upon them in this resolution to do this, 
was I not bound to oifer, for a surrender of that favorite 
principle or measure of theirs, some compensation, not as 
an equivalent by any means, but some compensation in the 
spirit of mutual forbearance, which^ animating one side, 
ought at the same time to actuate the other side.^ Well, 
sir, what is it that is offered them? It is a declaration of 
what I characterized, and must still characterize, with great 
deference to all those who entertain opposite opinions, as 
two truths, I will not say incontestible, but to me clear, and 
I think they ought to be regarded as indisputable truths. 
What are they.'' The first is, that by law slavery no longer 
exists in any part of the acquisitions made by us from the 
Republic of ^lexico; and the other is, that in our opinion, 
according to the probabilities of the case, slavery never will 
be introduced into any portion of the territories so ac- 
quired from Mexico. 



274 Henry Clay 

Allow me to say that, in my humble judgment, the in- 
stitution of slavery presents two questions totally distinct 
and resting on entirely different grounds — slavery within 
the States, and slavery without the States. Congress, the 
general government, has no power, under the Constitution 
of the United States, to touch slavery within the States, ex- 
cept in three specified particulars in that instrument: to 
adjust the subject of representation; to impose taxes when 
a system of direct taxation is made ; and to perform the 
duty of surrendering, or causing to be delivered up, fugi- 
tive slaves that may escape from service which they owe in 
slave States, and take refuge in free States. And, sir, I 
am ready to say that if Congress were to attack, within the 
States, the institution of slavery, for the purpose of the 
overthrow or extinction of slavery, then, Mr. President, 
my voice would be for war; then would be made a case 
which would justify in the sight of God, and in the presence 
of the nations of the earth, resistance on the part of the slave 
States to such an unconstitutional and usurped attempt as 
would be made on the supposition which I have stated. 

Then we should be acting in defense of our rights, our 
domicils, our safety, our lives; and then, I think, would be 
furnished a case in which the slaveholding States would 
be justified, by all considerations which pertain to the hap- 
piness and security of man, to employ every instrument 
which God or nature had placed in their hands to resist 
such an attempt on the part of the free States. And then, 
if unfortunately civil war should break out, and we should 
present to the nations of the earth the spectacle of one 
portion of this Union endeavoring to subvert an institution 
in violation of the Constitution and the most sacred obliga- 
tions which can bind men ; we should present the spectacle 
in which we should have the sympathies, the good wishes, 
and the desire for our success of all men who love justice 
and truth. Far different, I fear, would be our case if 
unhappily we should be plunged into civil war — if the two 
parts of this country should be placed in a position hostile 



Compromise of 1850 275 

toward each other — in order to carry slavery into the new 
territories acquired from Mexico. 

The government has no right to touch the institution 
within the States ; but whether she has^ and to what extent 
she has the right or not to touch it outside of the States, 
is a question which is debatable, and upon which men may 
honestly and fairly differ, but which, decided however it 
may be decided, furnishes, in my judgment, no just oc- 
casion for breaking up this happy and glorious Union of 
ours. 

Mr. President, I shall not take up time, of which already 
so much has been consumed, to show that, according to the 
sense of the Constitution of the United States, or rather ac- 
cording to the sense in which the clause has been inter- 
preted for the last fifty years, the clause which confers on 
Congress the power to regulate the Territories and other 
property of the United States conveys the authority. . . . 

I said there is another source of power equally satisfac- 
tory, equally conclusive in my mind, as that which relates 
to the Territories; and that is the treaty-making power — 
the acquiring power. Now I put it to gentlemen, is there 
not at this moment a 23ower somewhere existing either to 
admit or exclude slavery from the ceded territory? It is 
not an annihilated power. This is impossible. It is a 
subsisting, actual, existing power; and where does it exist.'' 
It existed, I presume no one will controvert, in Mexico 
prior to the cession of these territories. ]Mexico could 
have abolished slavery or introduced slavery either in Cali- 
fornia or New Mexico. That must be conceded. Who 
will controvert this position? Well, Mexico has parted 
from the territory and from the sovereignty over the terri- 
tory; and to whom did she transfer it? She transferred 
the territory and the sovereignty of the territory to the 
government of the United States. 

The government of the United States acquires in sover- 
eignty and in territory over California and New Mexico, 
all, either in sovereignty or territory, that Mexico held in 



2/6 Henry Clay 

California or New Mexico, by the cession of those terri- 
tories. Sir, dispute that who can. The power exists or it 
does not; no one will contend for its annihilation. It ex- 
isted in Mexico. Xo one, I think, can deny that. Mexico 
alienates the sovereignty over the territory, and her alienee 
is the governinent of the United States. The government 
of the United States, then, possesses all power which 
Mexico possessed over the ceded territories, and the govern- 
ment of the United States can do in reference to tliem — 
within, I admit, certain limits of the Constitution — what- 
ever Mexico could have done. There are prohibitions upon 
the power of Congress within the Constitution, which pro- 
hibitions, I admit, must apply to Congress whenever she 
legislates, whether for the old States or for new terri- 
tories ; but, within those prohibitions, the powers of the 
United States over the ceded territories are coextensive and 
equal to tlie power of Mexico in the ceded territories, prior 
to the cession. 

I pass on from the second resolution to the third and 
fourth, which relate to Texas: and allow me to say, Mr. 
President, that I approach the subject with a full knowl- 
edge of all its difficulties ; and of all the questions con- 
nected with or growing out of this institution of slavery 
which Congress is called vipon to pass upon and decide, 
there are none so difficult and troublesome as those which 
relate to Texas, because, sir, Texas has a question of bound- 
ary to settle, and the question of slavery, or the feelings 
connected with it, run into the question of boundary. The 
North, perhaps, will be anxious to contract Texas within 
the narrowest possible limits, in order to exclude all be- 
yond her to make it a free Territory; the South, on the 
contrarj^, may be anxious to extend those sources of Rio 
Grande, for the purpose of creating an additional theater 
for slavery; and thus, to the question of the limits of 
Texas, and the settlement of her boundary, the slavery 



Compromise of 1850 277 

question, with all its troubles and difficulties^ is added, meet- 
ing us at every step we take. 

There is, sir, a third question, also, adding to the dif- 
ficulty. By the resolution of annexation, slavery was in- 
terdicted in all north of 36 degrees 30 minutes ; but of New 
Mexico, that portion of it which lies north of 36 degrees 
30 minutes embraces, I think, about one-third of the whole 
of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande ; so that you have 
free and slave territory mixed, boundary and slavery mixed 
together, and all these difficulties are to be encountered. 

Sir, the other day my honorable friend who represents 
so well the State of Texas said that we had no more right 
to touch the limits of Texas than. we had to touch the limits 
of Kentucky. I think that was the illustration he gave us 
- — that a State is one and indivisible, and that the general 
go^'ernment has no right to sever it. I agree with him, sir, 
in that; where the limits are ascertained and certain, where 
they are undisputed and indisputable. The general govern- 
ment has no right, nor has any other earthly power the 
right, to interfere with the limits of a State whose bounda- 
ries are thus fixed, thus ascertained, known, and recognized. 
The whole power, at least, to interfere with it is voluntary. 
The extreme case may be jjut — one which I trust in God 
may never happen in this nation — of a conquered nation, 
and of a constitution adapting itself to the state of subju- 
gation or conquest to which it has been reduced; and giving 
up whole States, as well as parts of States, in order to save 
from the conquering arms of the invader what remains. I 
say such a power in case of extremity may exist. But I 
admit that, short of such extremity, voluntarily, the general 
government has no right to separate a State — to take a 
portion of its territory from it, or to regard it otherwise 
than as integral, one and indivisible, and not to be affected 
by any legislation of ours. But, then, I assume what 
does not exist in the case of Texas, and these boundaries 
must be known, ascertained, and indisputable. With re- 



278 Henry Clay 

gard to Texas, all was open, all was unflxed; all is un- 
fixed at this moment, with respect to her limits west and 
north of the Nueces. ... In the resolution, what is 
proposed.^ To coniine her to the Nueces? No, sir. To 
extend her boundary to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and 
thence up that river to the southern limit of New Mexico; 
and thence along that limit to the boundary between the 
United States and Spain, as marked under the treaty of 
I8I9. 

Why, sir, here is a vast country. I believe — although 
I have made no estimate about it — that it is not inferior 
in extent of land, of acres, of square miles, to what Texas 
east of the river Nueces, extending to the Sabine, had be- 
fore. Ajid who is there. can say with truth and justice 
that there is no reciprocity, nor mutuality, no concession 
in this resolution, made to Texas, even in reference to the 
question of boundary alone .^ You give her a vast country, 
equal, I repeat, in extent nearly to what she indisputably 
possessed before; a country sufficiently large, with her con- 
sent, hereafter to carve out of it some two or three addi- 
tional States when the condition of the population may 
render it expedient to luake new States. Sir, is there not 
in this resolution concession, liberality, justice? But this 
is not all that we propose to do. The second resolution 
proposes to pay off a certain amount of the debt of Texas. 
A blank is left in the resolution, because I have not here- 
tofore been able to ascertain the amount. 

I pass to the consideration of the next resolution in the 
series which I have had the honor to submit, and which 
relates, if I am not mistaken, to this District. 

"Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, while that institution continues 
to exist in the State of ^Maryland, without the consent of 
that State, without the consent of the people of the Dis- 
trict, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves 
within the District." 



Compromise of 1850 279 

Mr. President, an objection at the moment was made to 
this resolution, by some honorable Senator on the other 
side of the body, that it did not contain an assertion of 
the unconstitutionality of the exercise of the power of 
abolition. I said then, as I have uniformly maintained in 
this body, as I contended for in 1838, and ever have done, 
that the power to abolisli slavery within the District of 
Columbia has been vested in Congress by language too 
clear and explicit to admit, in my judgment, of any ra- 
tional doubt whatever. What, sir, is the language of the 
Constitution? "To exercise exclusive legislation, in all 
cases whatever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles 
square) as may, by cession of particular States and the 
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government 
of the United States." Now, sir. Congress, by this grant 
of power, is invested with all legislation whatsoever over 
the District. 

Can we conceive of human language more broad and com- 
prehensive than that which invests a legislative body with 
exclusive power, in all cases whatsoever, of legislature over 
a given district of territory or country? Let me ask, sir, 
is there any power to abolish slavery in this District? Let 
me suppose, in addition to what I suggested the other day, 
that slavery had been abolished in Maryland and Virginia 
— let me add to it the supposition that it was abolished 
in all the States in the Union ; is there any power then 
to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, or 
is slavery planted here to all eternity, without the possi- 
bility of the exercise of any legislative power for its aboli- 
tion? It can not be invested in Maryland, because the 
power with which Congress is invested is exclusive. Mary- 
land, therefore, is excluded, and so all the other States of 
the Union are excluded. It is here, or it is nowhere. 

This was the view which I took in 1838^ and I think 
there is nothing in the resolution which I offered on that 
occasion incompatible with the view which I now present, 
and which the resolution contains. While I admitted the 



280 Henry Clay 

power to exist in Congress, and exclusively in Congress, to 
legislate in all cases whatsoever, and consequently in the 
abolition of slavery in this District, if it is deemed proper 
to do so, I admitted on that occasion, as I contend now, that 
it is a power which Congress can not, in conscience and 
good faith, exercise while the institution of slavery con- 
tinues within the State of ^Maryland. 

This resolution requires . . . that slavery shall not 
be abolished within the District of Columbia, although 
Maryland consents, although the people of the District of 
Columbia themselves consent, without the third condition 
of making compensation to the owners of the slaves within 
the District. Sir, it is immaterial to me upon what basis 
this obligation to compensate for the slaves who may be 
liberated by the authority of Congress is placed. There is 
a clause in the Constitution of the United States, of the 
amendments to the Constitution, which declares that no 
private property shall be taken for public use, without just 
compensation being made to the owner of the prop- 
erty. 

I know it has been argued that the clause of the Con- 
stitution which requires compensation for property taken 
by the public, for its use, would not apply to the case of 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, because 
the property is not taken for the use of the public. Literal- 
ly, perhaps, it would not be taken for the use of the jjublic; 
but it would be taken in consideration of a policy and pur- 
jDOse adopted by the public, as one which it was deemed 
expedient to carry into full effect and operation ; and, by 
a liberal interpretation of the clause, it ought to be so far 
regarded as taken for the use of the public, at the instance 
of the public, as to demand compensation to the extent of 
the value of the property. 

The second clause of this resolution [the sixth], provides 
"that it is expedient to prohibit within the District the trade 
in slaves brought into it from States or places beyond the 



Compromise of 1850 281 

limits of the District^ either to be sold therein as merchan- 
dise, or to be transported to other markets." 

Well, Mr. President, if the concession be made that Con- 
gress has the power of legislation, and exclusive legisla- 
tion, in all cases whatsoever, how can it be doubted that 
Congress has authority to prohibit what is called the slave- 
trade in the District of Columbia ? Sir, my interpretation 
of the Constitution is this : that with regard to all parts of 
it which operate upon the States, Congress can exercise no 
power which is not granted, or which is not a necessary im- 
plication from a granted power. That is the rule for the 
action of Congress in relation to its legislation upon the 
States, but in relation to its legislation upon this District, 
the reverse. I take it to be the rule that Congress has all 
power over the District which is not prohibited by some 
part of the Constitution of the United States ; in other 
words, that Congress has a power within the District equiva- 
lent to, and co-extensive with, the power which any State 
itself jDOSsesses within its own limits. Well, sir, does any 
one doubt the power and the right of any slaveholding 
State in this Union to forbid the introduction, as merchan- 
dise, of slaves within their limits? Why, sir, almost every 
slaveholding State in the Union has exercised its power to 
prohibit the. introduction of slaves as merchandise. 

Sir, the power exists ; the duty, in my opinion, exists ; and 
there has been no time — as I may, in language coincident 
with that used hj the honorable Senator from Alabama — 
there has been no time in my public life when I was not 
willing to concur in the abolition of the slave-trade in this 
District. . . . Why are the feelings of citizens here 
outraged by the scenes exhibited, and the corteges which 
pass along our avenues, of manacled human beings, not 
collected at all in our own neighborhood, but brought from 
distant ^Darts of neighboring States.'' Why should they be 
outraged.^ And who is there, that has a heart, that does 
not contemplate a spectacle of that kind with horror and 



282 Henry Clay 

indignation? Why should they be outraged by a scene so 
inexcusable and detestable as this? 

Sir, it is no concession, I repeat, from one class of States 
or from the other. It is an object in which both of them, 
it seems to me, should heartily unite, and which the one 
side as much as the other sliould rejoice in adopting, inas- 
much as it lessens one of the causes of inquietude and dis- 
satisfaction which are connected with this District. 

The next resolution is : 

"That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, 
according to the requirement of the Constitution, for the 
restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or 
labor in any State, who may escape into any other State or 
Territory in the Union." 

Now, Mr. President, upon that subject I go with him 
who goes furthest in tlie interpretation of that clause in 
the Constitution. In my humble opinion, sir, it is a re- 
quirement by the Constitution of the United States which 
is not limited in its operation to the Congress of the United 
States, but extends to every State in the Union and to the 
officers of every State in the Union ; and I go one step 
further: it extends to every man in the Union, and de- 
volves upon them all an obligation to assist in the recovery 
of a fugitive from labor who takes refuge in or escapes into 
one of the free States. And, sir, I think I can maintain 
all this by a fair interpretation of the Constitution. It 
provides : 

"That no person held to service or labor in one State 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in con- 
sequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 
of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 

It will be observed, Mr. President, that this clause in 
the Constitution is not among the enumerated powers 
granted to Congress, for, if that had been the case, it 
might have been urged that Congress alone could legislate 



Compromise of 1850 283 

to carry it into efl'ect; but it is one of, the general powers 
or one of the general rights secured by this constitutional 
instrument, and it addresses itself to all who are bound by 
the Constitution of the United States. Now^ sir, the of- 
ficers of tlie general government are bound to take an oath 
to supjjort the Constitution of the United States. All State 
officers are required by the Constitution to take an oath to 
support the Constitution of the United States; and all men 
who love their country and are obedient to its laws, are 
bound to assist in the execution of those laws, whether they 
are fundamental or derivative. I do not say that a pri- 
vate individual is bound to make the tour of his State in 
order to assist an owner of a slave to recover his property; 
but I do say, if he is present when the owner of a slave 
is about to assert his rights and endeavor to obtain pos- 
session of his property, every man present, whether he be 
an officer of tlie general government or the State govern- 
ment, or a private individual, is bound to assist^ if men 
are bound at all to assist in the execution of the laws of 
their country. 

Now what is tliis provision ? It is that such fugitive 
shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due. As has been already remarked 
in the course of the debate iipon the bill upon this svib- 
ject which is now pending, the language used in regard to 
fugitives from criminal offenses and fugitives from labor 
is precisely the same. The fugitive from justice is to be 
delivered up, and to be removed to the State having juris- 
diction ; the fugitive from labor is to be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service is due. Well, has 
it ever been contended on the part of any State that she is 
not bound to surrender a fugitive from justice, upon de- 
mand from the State from which he fled.^ I believe not. 
There have been some exceptions to the performance of this 
duty, but they have not denied the general right; and if 
they have refused in any instance to give up the person de- 
manded, it has been upon some technical or legal ground. 



284 Henry Clay 

not at all questioning the general riglit to have the fugitive 
surrendered^ or the obligation to deliver him up as intended 
by the Constitution. 

I think^ then, Mr. President, that with regard to the true 
interpretation of this provision of the Constitution there 
can be no doubt. It imposes an obligation upon all the 
States, free or slaveholding; it imposes an obligation upon 
all officers of the government. State or Federal ; and, I will 
add, upon all the people of the United States, under par- 
ticular circumstances, to assist in the surrender and re- 
covery of a fugitive slave from his master. 

Mr. President, I do think that that whole class of 
legislation, beginning in the Northern States and extend- 
ing to some of the Western States, by which obstructions 
and impediments have been thrown in the way of the re- 
covery of fugitive slaves, is unconstitutional and has origi- 
nated in a spirit which I trust will correct itself when those 
States come calmly to consider the nature and extent of 
their federal obligations. Of all the States in this Union, 
unless it be Virginia, the State of which I am a resident 
suffers most by the escape of their slaves to adjoining 
States. 

I have very little doubt, indeed, that the extent of loss 
to the State of Kentucky, in consequence of the escape of 
her slaves is greater, at least, in projjortion to the total 
number of slaves which are held within that commonwealth, 
even than in Virginia. I know full well, and so does the 
honorable Senator from Ohio know, that it is at the utmost 
hazard, and insecurity of life itself, that a Kentuckian 
can cross the river and go into the interior to take back 
his fugitive slave to the place from whence he fled. Re- 
cently an example occurred even in the city of Cincinnati, 
in respect to one of our most respectable citizens. Not 
having visited Ohio at all, but Covington, on the opposite 
side of the river, a little slave of his escaped over to Cin- 
cinnati. He pursued it ; he found it in the house in which 
it was concealed; he took it out, and it was rescued bv the 



Compromise of 1850 285 

violence and force of a negro mob from his possession — the 
police of the city standing by, and either unwilling or 
unable to afford the assistance which was requisite to enable 
him to recover his property. 

Upon this subject I do think that we have just and seri- 
ous cause of complaint against the free States. I think 
they fail in fulfilling a great obligation, and the failure is 
precisely upon one of those subjects which in its nature 
is the most irritating and inflaming to those who live in 
the slave States. 

Now, sir, I think it is a mark of no good neighborhood, 
of no kindness, of no courtesy, that a man living in a slave 
State can not now, with any sort of safety, travel in the 
free States with his servants, although he has no purpose 
whatever of stopping there longer than a short time. And 
on this whole subject, sir, how has the legislation of the 
free States altered for the worse within the course of the 
last twenty or thirty years ? Why, sir, most of those States, 
until within a jDcriod of the last twenty or thirty years, had 
laws for the benefit of sojourners, as they were called, pass- 
ing through or abiding for the moment in the free States, 
with their servants. . . . Well, now, sir, all these laws 
in behalf of these sojourners through the free States are 
swept away, except I believe in the State of Rhode Island. 

Mr. Dayton — And New Jersey. 

Mr. Clay — Ay, and in New Jersey. 

Then, JNIr. President, I think that the existing laws upon 
the subject, for the recovery of fugitive slaves, and the re- 
storation and delivering of them up to their owners, being 
found inadequate and inaffective, it is incumbent on Con- 
gress — and I hope hereafter, in a better state of feeling, 
when more harmony and good will prevail among the mem- 
bers of this confederacy, it will be regarded by the free 
States themselves as a part of their duty also — to assist in 
allaying this irritating and disturbing subject to the peace 
of our Union ; but, at all events, whether they do it or not, 
it is our dutv to do it. It is our dutv to make the law more 



286 Henry Clay 

effective, and I shall go with the Senator from the South 
who goes furthest in making penal laws and imposing the 
heaviest sanctions for the recovery of fugitive slaves, and 
the restoration of them to their owners. 

Mr. President, upon this part of the subject, however, 
allow me to make an observation or two. I do not think 
the States, as States, ought to be responsible for all the 
misconduct of particular individuals within those States. 
I think that the States are only to be held responsible when 
they act in their sovereign capacity. If there are a few 
jjersons, indiscreet, mad if you choose — fanatics if you 
choose so to call them — who are for dissolving this Union, 
as we know there are some at the North, and for dissolving 
it in consequence of the connection which exists between 
the free and slaveholding States, I do not think that any 
State in which such madmen as they are to be found, ought 
to be held responsible for the doctrines they propagate, 
unless the State itself adopts those doctrines. 

Mr. President, I have a great deal yet to say, and I shall, 
therefore, pass from the consideration of this seventh reso- 
lution, with the observation, which I believe I have partly 
made before, that the most stringent provision upon this 
subject which can be devised will meet with my hearty 
concurrence and co-operation, in the passage of the bill 
which is under the consideration of the Senate. The last 
resolution declares : 

"That Congress has no power to prohibit or obstruct 
the trade in slaves between the slaveholding States ; but that 
the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into 
another of them, depends exclusively upon their own par- 
ticular laws." 

This is a concession, not, I admit, of any real constitu- 
tional provision, but a concession from the North to the 
'South of what is understood, I believe, by a great number 
at the North, to be a constitutional provision. If the reso- 
lution should be adopted, take away the decision of the 



Compromise of 1850 287 

Supreme Court of the United States on this subject, and 
there is a great deal, I know, that might be said on both 
sides, as to the right of Congress to regulate the trade be- 
tween the States, and, consequently, the trade in slaves 
between the States ; but I think the decision of the Supreme 
Court has been founded upon correct principles, and I trust 
it will forever put an end to the question whether Congress 
has or has not the power to regulate the intercourse and 
trade in slaves between the dift"erent States. 

Such, Mr. President, is the series of resolutions which, in 
an earnest and anxious desire to present the olive branch 
to both parts of this distracted, and at the present moment, 
unhappy country, I have thought it my duty to offer. Of 
all men upon earth I am the least attached to any produc- 
tions of my own mind. Xo man upon earth is more ready 
than I am to surrender anything which I have proposed, 
and to accept in lieu of it anything that is better ; but I put 
it to the candor of honorable Senators on the other side 
and upon all sides of the House, whether their duty will 
be performed by simply limiting themselves to objections 
to any one or to all of the series of resolutions that I have 
offered. If my plan of peace, and accommodation, and 
harmony, is not right, present us your plan. Let us see 
the counter project. Let us see how all the questions that 
have arisen out of this unhappy subject of slavery can 
be better settled, more fairly and justly settled to all 
quarters of the Union, than on the plan proposed in the 
resolutions which I have offered. Present me such a 
scheme, and I will hail it with pleasure, and will accept it 
without the slightest feeling of regret that my own was 
abandoned. 

Now, sir, when I came to consider the subject and to 
compare the provisions of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes 
— the Missouri Compromise line — with the plan which I 
propose for the accommodation of this question, what said 
I to myself? Why, sir, if I offer the line of 36 degrees 30 



288 Henry Clay 

minutes, interdicting slavery nortli of it, and leaving the 
question open south of that line^ I offer that which is il- 
lusorjr to the South; I ofter that which will deceive them, 
if they suppose that slavery will be introduced south of 
that line. It is better for them, I said to myself — it is 
better for the Avhole South, that there should be non-action 
on both sides, than that there should be action interdicting 
slavery on one side, without action for admission of slavery 
on the other side of the line. Is it not so? What, then, 
is gained by the South, if the ^Missouri line is extended to 
the Pacific, with an interdiction of slavery north of it.'' 
Why, sir, one of the very arguments which have been most 
of«ten and most seriously urged hj the South has been this, 
that we do not want you to legislate upon the subject at 
all; you ought not to touch it; you have no power over it. 
I do not concur, as is well known from what I have said 
upon this occasion, in this view of the subject. But that is 
the Southern argimient. We do not want you to legislate 
at all on the subject of slavery. But if you adopt tlie Mis- 
souri line and extend it to the Pacific, and interdict slavery 
north of that line, j'ou do legislate upon the subject of sla- 
very, and you legislate without a corresponding equivalent 
of legislation on the subject south of the line. For, if there 
be legislation interdicting slavery north of the line, the 
principle of equality would require that there should be 
legislation admitting slavery south of the line. 

Sir, I have said that I never could vote for it. and I re- 
peat that I never can, and never will vote for it ; and no 
earthly power shall ever make me vote to plant slavery 
where slavery does not exist. Still, if there be a majority 
■ — and there ought to be such a majority — for interdicting 
slavery north of the line, there ought to be an equal ma- 
jority — if equality and justice be done to the South — to 
admit slavery south of the line. And if there be a majority 
ready to accomplish both of these purposes, though I can 
not concur in the action, yet I would be one of the last to 
create any disturbance, I would be one of the first to ac- 



Compromise of 1850 289 

quiesce in such legislation, though it is contrary to my own 
judgment and my own conscience. I think, then, it would 
be better to keep the whole of these territories untouched 
by any legislation by Congress on the subject of slavery, 
leaving it open, undecided, without any action of Congress 
in relation to it; that it would be best for the South, and 
best for all the views which the South has, from time 
to time, disclosed to us as correspondent with her 
wishes. 

And, sir, I must take occasion here to say that in my 
opinion there is no right on the part of any one or more of 
the States to secede from the Union. War and dissolution 
of the Union are identical and inevitable, in my opinion. 
There can be a dissolution of the Union only by consent 
or by war. Consent no one can anticipate, from any ex- 
isting state of things, is likely to be given; and war is the 
only alternative by which a dissolution could be accom- 
plished. If consent were given — if it were possible that 
we were to be separated by one great line — in less than 
sixty days after such consent was given war would break 
out between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding portions 
of this Union — between the two independent parts into 
which it would be erected in virtue of the act of separation. 
In less than sixty days, I believe, our slaves from Kentucky, 
flocking over in numbers to the other side of the river, would 
be pursued by their owners. Our hot and ardent spirits 
would be restrained by no sense of the right which apper- 
tains to the independence of the other side of the river, 
should that be the line of separation. They would pursue 
their slaves into the adjacent free States; they would be re- 
pelled; and the consequence would be that, in less than 
sixty days, war would be blazing in every part of this now 
happy and peaceful land. 

And, sir, how are you going to separate the States of 
this confederacy? In my humble opinion, Mr. President, 
we should begin with at least three separate confederacies. 
There would be a confederacy of the North, a confederacy 



290 Henry Clay 

of the Southern Atlantic slaveholding States^ and a con- 
federacy of the valley of the Mississippi. My life upon 
it, that the vast population which has already concentrated 
and will concentrate on the head-waters and the tributaries 
of the Mississippi will never give their consent that the 
mouth of that river shall be held subject to the power of 
any foreign State or community whatever. Such, I be- 
lieve, would be the consequences of a dissolution of the 
Union, immediately ensuing; but other confederacies would 
spring up from time to time, as dissatisfaction and discon- 
tent were disseminated throughout the country — the con- 
federacy of the lakes, jjerhaps the confederacy of New 
England, or of the middle States. Ah, sir, the veil which 
covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond it, 
is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or 
hand. 

Mr. President, I have said, what I solemnly believe, that 
dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inevi- 
table ; and they are convertible terms ; and such a war as it 
would be, following a dissolution of the Union! Sir, we 
may search the pages of history, and none so ferocious, so 
bloody, so implacable, so exterminating — not even the wars 
of Greece, including those of the Commoners of England 
and the revolutions of France — none, none of them all 
would rage with such violence, or be characterized with 
sucli bloodshed and enormities as would the war which 
must succeed, if that ever happens, the dissolution of the 
Union. And what would be its termination.^ Standing 
armies, and navies, to an extent stretching the revenues of 
each portion of the dissevered members, would take place. 
An exterminating war would follow — not sir, a war of two 
or three years' duration, but a war of interminable dura- 
tion — and exterminating wars would ensue, until, after the 
struggles and exhaustion of both parties, some Philip or 
Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and cut 
the Gordian knot, and solve the problem of the capacity 
of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both 



Compromise of 1850 291 

the severed portions of this common empire. Can you 
doubt it? 

Look at all history — consult her pages, ancient or mod- 
ern — look at human nature; look at the contest in which 
you would be engaged in the supposition of war following 
upon the dissolution of the Union^ such as I have sug- 
gested; and I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that 
the final disposition of the whole would be some despot 
treading down the liberties of the people — the final result 
would be the extinction of this last and glorious light which 
is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, in the hope 
and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails 
here will sooner or later be diffused throughout the whole 
of the civilized world. Sir, can you lightly contemplate 
these consequences .^ Can you yield yourself to the tyranny 
of passion, amid dangers which I have depicted, in colors 
far too tame, of what the result would be if that direful 
event to which I have referred should ever occur? Sir, I 
implore gentlemen, I adjure them, whether from the South 
or the North, by all that they hold dear in this world — by 
all their love of liberty — by all their veneration for their 
ancestors — by all their regard for posterity — by all their 
gratitude to Him who has bestowed on them such unnum- 
bered and countless blessings — by all the duties which they 
owe to mankind — and by all the duties which they owe to 
themselves, to pause, solemnly to pause at the edge of the 
precipice, before the fearful and dangerous leap be taken 
into the yawning abj^ss below, from which none who ever 
take it shall return in safety. 

Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I imploi-e, as 
the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me upon 
earth, that if the direful event of the dissolution of this 
Union is to happen, I shall not survive to behold the sad 
and heart-rending sj^ectacle. 



19. CHARLES SUMNER, of Massachusetts.— THE 
CRIME AGAINST KANSAS 

(Delivered in the U. S. Senate, May 19 and '20, 1856.) 

The most celebrated speech of this time was Sumner's 
oration on "The Crime Against Kansas." It was delivered 
in the Senate May 19 and 20, 1856, and denounced the 
pro-slavery violence and illegality produced in Kansas by 
Senator Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act of ISSi. 

The speech was prepared with great care, and was in- 
tended by Sumner (as he wrote Theodore Parker) to be 
"the most thorough jihilippic ever uttered in a legislative 
bodj\" It was a work of masterly literary quality, delivered 
with striking elocution ; and because of its intrinsic merits, 
and because of the brutal assault upon Sumner by Repre- 
sentative Preston S. Brooks which it provoked, it attained a 
circulation of half a million copies. Its faults are its ex- 
travagant statements, oifensive personalities, turgid rhe- 
toric, and too artificial construction ; briefly, it smells too 
much of the lamp and the closet. 

In the course of a powerful exordium of fourteen pages, 
celebrating Kansas's geographical advantages, and the un- 
paralleled "crime" perpetrated against the Territory, Sum- 
ner gives the outline of his speech as follows: "My task 
will be divided under three heads: First, the Crime against 

Charles Simner. Born in Massachusetts, 1811; graduated from Harvard. 1830; 
admitted to the bar. 1834; travelled and studied abroad, 1837-40; aetively entered 
the anti-slavery movement, 1845; assisted in formiufr the Free Soil Party. 1848; 
chosen to the U. S. Senate by a coalition of Massachusetts Free Soilersand Demo- 
crats, 1851, serving until his death in 1874. 

292 



Crime Against Kansas 293 

Kansas, and its origin and extent; secondly, the Apologies 
for the Crime; and thirdly, the True Remedy" — which he 
finds in the immediate admission of Kansas as a State of 
the Union. The extracts which are here given comprise the 
greater part of the first of these three sections. (See 
Works of Charles Sumner, IV; Pierce, Memoirs and Letters 
of Charles Sumner, III, ch. xl.) 

In omitted portions of the speech, Sumner goes out of his 
way to attack (among others) Senator Butler of South 
Carolina, an elderly, courteous gentleman of ability, who 
was out of Washington at the time. Sumner called him a 
Don Quixote who had chosen as the mistress of his chival- 
rous vows "the harlot Slavery," and charged him with in- 
coherence, uttering "the loose expectoration of his speech," 
untruthfulness, and "incapacity of accuracy." In a heated 
debate which followed the close of his address, Sumner — 
in violation of every canon of good taste — compared Sena- 
tor Douglas to a "common scold," and described him as 
switching "out from his tongue the perpetual stench of 
offensive personality" after the manner of "the noisome, 
squat, and nameless animal." 

While seated at his desk in the Senate chamber two days 
later, Sumner was brutally beaten into insensibility by 
Representative Preston S. Brooks, a South Carolinian, a 
relative of Senator Butler. The injuries which Sumner re- 
ceived were greater than was suspected at the time. They 
nearly cost him his life and compelled his absence from 
the Senate chamber for three vears. 



294 Charles Sumner 

[Charles Sumner, in the U. S. Senate, May 19 and 20, 1856.] 

I UNDERTAKE, in the first place, to expose the Crime 
AGAINST Kansas, in origin and extent. Logically, this 
is the beginning of the argument. I say Crime, and 
deliberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any 
other denoting the consummate transgression. I would go 
further if language could further go. It is the Crime of 
Crimes, — surpassing far the old Crimen Majestatis [trea- 
son] pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and 
containing all other crimes as the greater contains the less. 
I do not go too far when I call it the Crime against Nature, 
from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses 
to describe. To lay bare this enormity I now proceed. The 
whole subject has become a twice-told tale, and its renewed 
recital will be a renewal of sorrow and shame; but I shall 
not hesitate. The occasion requires it from the beginning. 
It is well remarked by a distinguislied historian of our 
country* that "at the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri dis- 
cussion, the Slave Interest, hitherto hardly recognized as 
a distinct element in our system, started up portentous and 
dilated," with threats and assumptions which are the origin 
of our existing national politics. This was in 1820. The 
debate ended with the admission of Missouri as a slave- 
holding State, and the prohibition of slavery in all the re- 
maining territory Avest of the Mississippi and north of 36 
degrees 30 minutes, leaving the condition of other territory 
south of this line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by 
the arrangement. Here was a solemn act of legislation, 
called at the time compromise, covenant, compact, first 
brought forward in this body by a slaveholder, vindicated 
in debate by slaveholders, finally sanctioned by slaveholding 
votes, — also upheld at the time by the essential approba- 
tion of a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his 
cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including 
Mr. Calhoun himself; and this compromise was made the 

*Hildretli, " History of the United States." Ithuriel is an angel, in Milton's 
"Paradise Lost," sent by God in seareh of Satan. 



Crime Against Kansas 295 

condition of the admission of ^Missouri, without which that 
State could not have been received into the Union. The 
bargain was simplC;, and was applicable, of course, only 
to the territory named. Leaving all other territory to await 
the judgment of another generation, the South said to the 
North, Conquer j^our prejudices so far as to admit Mis- 
souri as a slave State, and, in consideration of this much 
coveted boon, slavery shall be prohibited "forever" (mark 
here the word "forever") in all the remaining Louisiana 
Territory above 36 degrees 30 minutes; and the North 
yielded. 

In total disregard of history, the President, in his an- 
nual massage, tells us that this compromise "was reluctantly 
acquiesced in by Southern States." Just the contrary is 
true. It was the work of slaveholders, and by their con- 
curring votes was crowded upon a reluctant North. It was 
hailed by slaveholders as a victory. Charles Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, in an oft-quoted letter, written at eight 
o'clock on the night of its passage, says, "It is considered 
here by the slaveholding States as a great triumph." At 
the North it was accepted as a defeat, and the friends of 
freedom everywhere throughout the country bowed their 
heads with mortification. Little did they know the com- 
pleteness of their disaster. Little did they dream that the 
prohibition of slavery in the territory, which was stipulated 
as the price of their fatal capitulation, would also, at the 
very moment of its maturity, be wrested from them. 

Time passed, and it became necessary to provide for this 
territory an organized government. Suddenly, without 
notice in the public press or the prayer of a single petition 
or one word of open recommendation from the President, 
after an acquiescence of thirty- four years, and the irre- 
claimable possession by the South of its special share under 
this compromise, in breach of every obligation of honor, 
compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous 
disregard of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused 
North, this time-honored prohibition — in itself a landmark 



296 Charles Sumner 

of freedom — was overturned, and the vast region now 
known as Kansas and Nebraska was open to slavery. It 
is natural that a measure thus repugnant in character should 
be pressed by arguments mutually repugnant. It was 
urged on two principal reasons, so opposite and inconsist- 
ent as to fight with each other: one being that^ by the re- 
peal of the prohibition, the Territory would be left open 
to the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, without hin- 
drance ; and the other being that the people would be left 
absolutely free to determine the question for themselves, 
and to prohibit the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, 
if they should think best. With some the apology was the 
alleged right of slaveholders ; with others it was the al- 
leged rights of the people. With some it was openly the 
extension of slavery : and with others it was openly the es- 
tablishment of freedom, under the guise of popular sover- 
eignty. The measure, thus upheld in defiance of reason, 
was carried through Congress in defiance of all securities 
of legislation. These things I mention that you may see 
in what foulness the present crime was engendered. 

It was carried, first by whipping in, through executive 
influence and patronage, men who acted against their own 
declared judgment and the known will of their constituents; 
secondly, by thrusting out of place, both in the Senate and 
House of Representatives, important business, long pend- 
ing, and usurping its room; thirdly, by trampling under 
foot the rules of the House of Representatives, always be- 
fore the safeguard of the minority; and, fourthly, by driv- 
ing it to a close during the very session in which it origi- 
nated, so that it might not be arrested by the indignant 
voice of the people. Such are some of the means by which 
this snap judgment was obtained. If the clear will of the 
people had not been disregarded, it could not have j^assed. 
If the government had not nefariously interposed, it could 
not have passed. If it had been left to its natural place in 
the order of business, it could hot have passed. If the rules 
of the House and the rights of the minority had not been 



Crime Against Kansas 297 

violated, it could not have passed. If it had been allowed 
to go over to another Congress, when the people might be 
heard, it would have been ended; and then the Crime we 
now deplore would have been without its first seminal life. 

Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within the 
limits of parliamentary propriety. I make no personal im- 
putations, but only with frankness, such as belongs to the 
occasion and my own character, describe a great historical 
act, now enrolled in the capitol. Sir, the Nebraska Bill 
was in every respect a swindle. It was a swindle of the 
North by the South. On the part of those who had already 
completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, 
it was a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely 
untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality set up — like 
the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been en- 
joyed — did not make it less a swindle. Urged as a bill of 
peace, it was a swindle of the whole country. Urged as 
opening the doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was 
a swindle of popular sovereignty in its asserted doctrine. 
Urged as sanctioning popular sovereignty, it was a swindle 
of slave-masters in their asserted rights. It was a swindle 
of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against sla- 
very. It was a swindle of a great cause, early espoused 
by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surrounded by 
the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it was a swindle of 
God-given, inalienable rights. Turn it over, look at it on 
all sides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and, if the word 
I now employ has not the authority of classical usage, it 
has, on this occasion, the indubitable authority of fitness. 
No other word will adequately express the mingled mean- 
ness and wickedness of the cheat. 

Its character is still further apparent in the general struc- 
ture of the bill. Amidst overflowing professions of regard 
for the sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they are 
despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty. They 
are not allowed to choose governor, secretary, chief justice, 
associate justices, attorney, or marshal, — all of whom are 



298 Charles Sumner 

sent from Washington ; nor are they allowed to regulate the 
salaries of any of these functionaries, or the daily allow- 
ance of the legislative body, or even the pay of the clerks 
and doorkeepers : but they are left free to adopt slavery. 
And this is nicknamed popular sovereignty ! Time does not 
allow, nor does the occasion require, that I should stop to 
dwell on this transparent device to cover a transcendent 
wrong. Suffice it to say that slavery is in itself an arro- 
gant denial of human riglits, and by no human reason can 
the power to establish such a wrong be placed among the 
attributes of any just sovereignty. In refusing it such a 
place, I do not deny popular rights, but uphold them; I 
do not restrain poi)ular rights, but extend them. And, sir, 
to this conclusion you must yet come, unless deaf not only 
to the admonitions of jjolitical justice, but also to the genius 
of our Constitution under which, when properly inter- 
preted, no valid claim for slavery can be set up anywhere 
in the national territory. The Senator from Michigan 
[Mr. Cass] may say, in response to the Senator from Mis- 
sissippi [Mr. Brown], that slavery can not go into the Ter- 
ritory, under the Constitution, without legislative introduc- 
tion; and permit me to add, in response to both, that sla- 
very can not go there at all. Nothing can come out of 
nothing; and there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution 
out of which slavery can be derived, while there are pro- 
visions which, when properly interpreted, make its ex- 
istence anywhere within the exclusive national jurisdiction 
impossible. 

The offensive provision in the bill is in its form a legis- 
lative anomaly, utterly wanting the natural directness and 
simplicity of an honest transaction. It does not undertake 
openly to repeal the old prohibition of slavery, but seems 
to mince the matter, as if conscious of the swindle. It says 
that this prohibition, "being inconsistent with the principle 
of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States 
and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, 
commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby de- 



Crime Against Kansas 299 

clared inoperative and void." Thus, with insidious os- 
tentation, is it pretended that an act violating the greatest 
compromise of our legislative history, and loosening the 
foundations of all compromise, is derived out of a compro- 
mise. Then follows in the bill the further declaration, en- 
tirely without precedent, which has been aptly called "a 
stump speech in its belly," namely, "it being the true in- 
tent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into 
any Territory or State nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
to the Constitution of the United States." Here are smooth 
words, such as belong to a cunning tongue enlisted in a bad 
cause. But, whatever may have been their various hidden 
meanings, this at least is evident, that, by their effect, the 
congressional prohibition of slavery, which had always been 
regarded as a sevenfold shield, covering the whole Louisi- 
ana Territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, is now re- 
moved, while a principle is declared which renders the sup- 
plementary prohibition of slaver}^ in Minnesota, Oregon, 
and Washington "inoperative and void," and thus opens to 
slavery all these vast regions, now the rude cradles of 
mighty States. Here you see the magnitude of the mischief 
contemplated. But my purpose is with the crime against 
Kansas, and I shall not stop to expose the conspiracy be- 
yond. 

Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to intend the 
natural consequences of their conduct, and to seek what 
their acts seem to promote. Now the Nebraska Bill, on 
its very face, openly clears the way for slavery, and it is 
not wrong to presume that its originators intended the nat- 
ural consequences of such an act, and sought in this way 
to extend slavery. Of course they did. And this is the 
first stage in the Crime against Kansas. 

This was speedily followed by other developments. It 
was soon whispered that Kansas must be a slave State. In 
conformity with this barefaced scheme was the government 



300 Charles Sumner 

of this unhappy Territory organized in all its departments ; 
and thus did the President, by whose complicity the pro- 
hibition of slavery was overthrown, lend himself to a new 
complicity, — giving to the conspirators a lease of conniv- 
ance amounting even to copartnership. The governor, sec- 
retary, chief justice, associate justices, attorney, and mar- 
shal, with a whole caucus of other stipendaries, nominated 
by the President and confirmed by the Senate, are all com- 
mended as friendly to slavery. No man with the sentiments 
of Washington or Jefferson or Franklin finds favor; nor 
is it too much to say that, had these great patriots once 
more come among us, not one of them, with his recorded 
unretracted opinions on slavery, could be nominated by the 
President or confirmed by the Senate for any post in that 
Territory. With such auspices the conspiracy proceeded. 
Even in advance of the Nebraska Bill secret societies were 
organized in Missouri, ostensibly to protect her institutions ; 
and afterwards, under the name of "Self-defensive Asso- 
ciations" and "Blue Lodges," these were multiplied through- 
out the western counties of that State before any counter- 
movement from the North. It was confidently anticipated, 
that, by the activity of these societies, and the interest of 
slaveholders everywhere, with the advantage derived from 
the neighborhood of Missouri and the influence of the Terri- 
torial government, slavery might be introduced into Kansas, 
quietly but surely, without arousing conflict, — that the 
crocodile egg might be stealthily dropped in the sunburnt 
soil, there to be hatched unobserved until it sent forth its 
reptile monster. 

But the conspiracy was unexpectedly balked. The debate 
which convulsed Congress stirred the whole country. From 
all sides attention was directed upon Kansas, which at once 
became the favorite goal of emigration. The bill loudly 
declares that its object is "to leave the people perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way," and its supporters everywhere challenge the de- 
termination of the question between freedom and slavery 



Crime Against Kansas 301 

by a competition of emigration. Thus, while opening the 
Territory to slavery, the bill also opens it to emigrants from 
every quarter, who may by votes redress the wrong. The 
populous North, stung by sense of outrage and inspired by 
a noble cause, are pouring into the debatable land, and 
promise soon to establish a supremacy of numbers there, 
involving of course a just supremacy of freedom. 

Then was conceived the consummation of the crime 
against Kansas. What could not be accomplished peace- 
ably was to be accomplished forcibly. The reptile monster, 
that could not be quietly and securely hatched there, is to 
be pushed fullgrown into the Territory. All efforts are 
now applied to the dismal work of forcing slavery upon free 
soil. In flagrant derogation of the very popular sover- 
eignty whose name helped to impose this bill upon the 
country, the atrocious object is distinctly avowed. And 
the avowal is followed by the act. Slavery is forcibly intro- 
duced into Kansas, and placed under formal safeguard of 
pretended law. How this is done belongs to the argmnent. 

In depicting this consvimmation, the simplest outline, 
without one word of color, will be best. Whether regarded 
in mass or detail, in origin or result, it is all blackness, il- 
lumined by nothing from itself, but only by the heroism 
of the undaunted men and women whom it environed. A 
plain statement of facts is a picture of direst truth, which 
faithful history will preserve in its darkest gallery. In 
the foreground all will recognize a familiar character, in 
himself connecting link between President and border ruf- 
fian, — less conspicuous for ability than for the exalted 
place he has occupied, — who once sat in the seat where you 
now sit, sir, — where once sat John Adams and Thomas 
Jefferson, — also, where once sat Aaron Burr. I need not 
add the name of David R. Atchison [Senator from Mis- 
souri from 18-i3 to 1855]. You do not forget that, at the 
session of Congress immediately succeeding the Nebraska 
Bill he came tardily to his duty here, and then after a short 
time disappeared. The secret was long since disclosed. 



302 Charles Sumner 

Like Catiline, he stalked into this chamber reeking with 
conspiracy, — immo etiam in Senatum venit, — and then, like 
Catiline, he skulked away, — abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit, — - 
to join and jirovoke the conspirators who at a distance 
awaited their congenial chief. Under the influence of his 
malign presence the crime ripened to its fatal fruits, while 
the similitude with Catiline is again renewed in the sym- 
pathy, not even concealed, which he finds in the very Sen- 
ate itself where, beyond even the Roman example, a Sena- 
tor has not hesitated to appear as his open compurgator. 

And now, as I proceed to show the way in which this 
Territor}^ was overrun and finally subjugated to slavery, 
I desire to remove, in advance, all question with regard to 
the authority on which I rely. The evidence is secondary, 
but it is the best which, in the nature of the case_, can be 
had; and it is not less clear, direct, and peremptory than 
any by which we are assured of the campaigns in the 
Crimea or the fall of Sebastopol [1854-55]. In its mani- 
fold mass, I confidently assert that it is such a body of evi- 
dence as the human mind is not able to resist. It is found 
in the concurring reports of the public press, in the letters 
of correspondents, in the testimony of travellers, and in 
the unaffected story to which I have listened from leading 
citizens, who, during this winter, have "come flocking" here 
from that distant Territory. It breaks forth in the irre- 
pressible outcry reacliing us from Kansas, whose truthful 
tones leave no ground of mistake. It addresses us in formal 
complaint, instinct with the indignation of a jDeople de- 
termined to be free, and unimpeachable as the declarations 
of a murdered man on his dying-bed against his murderer. 
And let me add that all this testimony finds echo in the 
very statute book of the conspirators, and also in language 
dropped from the President of the United States. 

Five several times and more have these invaders entered 
Kansas in armed array, and thus five several times and 
more have they trampled upon the organic law of the Ter- 



Crime Against Kansas 303 

ritory. These extraordinary expeditions are simply the 
extraordinary witnesses to successive, uninterrupted vio- 
lence. They stand out conspicuous, but not alone. The 
spirit of evil, in which they had their origin, is wakeful 
and incessant. From the beginning it hung upon the skirts 
of this interesting Territory, harrowing its peace, disturb- 
ing its prosperity, and keeping its inhabitants under the 
painful alarms of war. All security of person, property, 
and labor was overthrown ; and, when I urge this incontro- 
vertible fact, T set forth a wrong which is small only by the 
side of the giant wrong for the consummation of which all 
this is done. Sir, what is man — what is government — with- 
out security, in the absence of which nor man nor govern- 
ment can proceed in development or enjoy the fruits of 
existence ? Without security civilization is cramped and 
dwarfed. Without security there is no true freedom. Nor 
shall I say too much, when I declare that security, guarded 
of course by its parent freedom, is the true end and aim of 
government. Of this indispensable boon the people of 
Kansas are despoiled, — absolutely, totally. All this is ag- 
gravated by the nature of their pursuits, rendering them 
peculiarly sensitive to interruption, and at the same time 
attesting their innocence. They are for the most part en- 
gaged in the cultivation of the soil, which from time imme- 
morial has been the sweet employment of undisturbed in- 
dustry. Contented in the returns of bounteous nature and 
the shade of his own trees, the husbandman is not aggres- 
sive. Accustomed to produce, and not to destroy, he is es- 
sentially peaceful, unless his home is invaded, when his 
arm derives vigor from the soil he treads, and his soul in- 
spiration from the heavens beneath whose canopy he daily 
toils. Such are the people of Kansas, whose security has 
been overthrown. Scenes from which Civilization averts 
her countenance are part of their daily life. Border incur- 
sions, which in barbarous ages or barbarous lands fretted 
and harried an exposed people, are here renewed: with this 
peculiarity, that our border robbers do not simply levy 



304 Charles Sumner 

blackmail and drive oft' a few cattle, like those who acted 
under the inspiration of the Douglas of other days, — they 
do not seize a few persons, and sweep them away into cap- 
tivity, like the African slave-traders, whom we brand as 
I3irates, — but they commit a succession of deeds in which 
border sorrows and African wrongs are revived together on 
American soil, while for the time being all protection is an- 
nulled and the whole Territory is enslaved. 

As every point in a wide-spread horizon radiates from a 
common centre, so everything said or done in this vast cir- 
cle of crime radiates from the one idea that Kansas, at all 
hazards, must be made a slave State. In all the manifold 
wickednesses that occur, and in every successive invasion, 
this one idea is ever present, as Satanic tempter, motive 
power, causing cause. Talk of "one idea" ! Here it is with 
a vengeance ! 

To accomplish this result, three things are attempted: 
first, by outrage of all kinds, to drive the friends of free- 
dom out of the Territory; secondly, to deter others from 
coming; and. thirdly, to obtain comi^lete control of the gov- 
ernment. The process of driving out, and also of deterring, 
has failed. On the contrary, the friends of freedom there 
have become more fixed in resolve to stay and fight the bat- 
tle which they never sought, but from which they disdain to 
retreat, while the friends of freedom elsewhere are more 
aroused to the duty of timely succor by men and munitions 
of just self-defense. 

While defeated in the first two processes, the conspirators 
succeeded in the last. By the violence already portrayed at 
the election of the 30th of ^larch, when the polls were oc- 
cupied by armed hordes from Missouri, they imjjosed a leg- 
islature upon the Territory, and thus, under the iron mask 
of law, established a Usurjiation not less complete than any 
in history. 

On this cumulative, irresistible evidence in concurrence 



Crime Against Kansas 305 

with antecedent history I rest. And yet Senators liere 
argue that this can not be, — precisely as the conspiracy of 
Cataline was doubted in the Roman Senate. "Nonnulli sunt 
in hoc ordine, qui aut ea quae imminent non videant, aut ea 
quce vident dissimulentj qui spem Catilinee mollibus senten- 
tiis aluerunt, conjurationemque nascentem non credendo 
corrohoraverunt." ["Some there are in this body who either 
do not see what threatens, or dissemble what they see; who 
have fed the hope of Catiline by mild sentiments, and 
strengthened the rising conspiracy by not believing it." — 
Cicero, Oratio in Catilinam, i, 12.] These words of the 
Roman orator picture the case here. As I listened to the 
Senator from Illinois while he painfully strove to show that 
there is no Usurpation, I was reminded of the effort by a 
distinguished logician to prove that Napoleon Bonaparte 
never existed. And permit me to say that the fact of his 
existence is not more entirely above doubt than the fact of 
this usurj^ation. This I assert on proofs already presented. 
But confirmation comes almost while I speak. The columns 
of the public press are daily filled with testimony solemnly 
taken before the committee of Congress in Kansas, which 
attests, in awful light, the violence ending in the Usurpa- 
tion. Of this 1 may speak on some other occasion. Mean- 
while I proceed with the development of the crime. 

The work of Usurpation was not perfected even yet. 
To obtain final assurance that their crime is secure, 
the whole Usurpation, stretching over the Territory, must 
be fastened and riveted by legislative bolt, spike, and 
screw, so as to defy all effort at change through ordinary 
forms of law. 

Mark, sir, three different legislative enactments, consti- 
tuting part of this work. First, according to one act, all 
who deny, by spoken or written word, "the right of persons 
to hold slaves in this Territory," are denounced as felons, 
to be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term 
not less than two years, — it may be for life. To show the 



3o6 Charles Sumner 

extravagance of this injustice, it is well put by the Senator 
from Vermont [Mr. CoUamer] that, should the Senator 
from Michigan [Mr. Cass], who believes that Slavery can 
not exist in a Territory unless introduced by express legis- 
lative act, venture there with his moderate opinions, his 
doom must be that of a felon ! To such extent are the 
great liberties of speech and of the press subverted ! Sec- 
ondly, by another act, entitled "An Act concern Attorneys- 
at-law," no person can practise as attorney unless he shall 
obtain a license from the Territorial courts, which, of 
course, a tyrannical discretion will be free to deny; and, 
after obtaining such license, he is constrained to take an 
oath not only "to support" the Constitution of the United 
States, but also "to support and sustain" — mark here the 
reduplication — the Territorial Act and the Fugitive Slave 
Bill, thus erecting a test for admission to the bar calculated 
to exclude citizens who honestly regard the latter legislative 
enormity as unfit to be obeyed. And, thirclly, by another 
act, entitled "An Act concerning Jurors," all persons "con- 
scientiously opposed to the holding slaves" or "who do not 
admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory" are ex- 
cluded from the jury on every question, civil or criminal, 
arising out of asserted slave property, while, in all cases, 
the summoning of the jury is left without one word of re- 
straint to "the marshal, sheriff, or other officer," who is thus 
free to pack it according to his tyrannical discretion. 

For the ready enforcement of all statutes against Human 
Freedom the President furnished a powerful quota of offi- 
cers, in the governor, chief justice, judges, secretary, at- 
torney, and marshal. The legislature completed this part 
of the work by constituting in each county a Board of Com- 
missioners, composed of two persons, associated with the 
probate judge, whose duty it is to "appoint a county treas- 
urer, coroner,^ justices of the peace, constables, and all 
other officers provided for by law," and then proceeding to 
the choice of this very Board, thus delegating and diffusing 
their usurped power, and tyrannically imposing upon the 



Crime Against Kansas 307 

Territory a crowd of officers in whose appointment the peO' 
pie had no voice, directly or indirectly. 

And still the final, inexorable work remained to be done. 
A legislature renovated in both branches could not assemble 
until 1858, so that, during this long intermediate period, 
this whole system must continue in the likeness of law, un- 
less overturned by the National Government, or, in default 
of such interposition, by the generous uprising of an op- 
pressed people. But it was necessary to guard against 
possibility of change, even tardily, at a future election; 
and this was done by two different acts, under the f.rst of 
which all who do not take the oath to support the Fugitive 
Slave Bill are excluded from the elective franchise, and 
under the second of which all others are entitled to vote 
who tender a tax of one dollar to the sheriff on the day of 
election ; thus, by provision of Territorial law, disfranchis- 
ing all opposed to Slavery, and at the same time opening 
the door to the votes of the invaders ; by an unconstitutional 
shibboleth excluding from the polls the body of actual set- 
tlers, and by making the franchise depend upon a petty 
tax only admitting to the polls the mass of borderers from 
Missouri. By tyrannical forethought the Usurpation not 
only fortified all that it did, but assumed a self-perpetuating 
energy. 

Thus was the Crime consummated. Slavery stands erect, 
clanking its chains on the Territory of Kansas, surrounded 
by a code of death, and trampling upon all cherished liber- 
ties, whether of speech, the press, the bar, the trial by jury, 
or the electoral franchise. And sir, all this is done, not 
merely to introduce a wrong which in itself is a denial of 
all rights, and in dread of which mothers have taken the 
lives of their offspring, — not merely, as is sometimes said, 
to protect Slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this 
State to complain of Freedom on the side of Kansas when 
Freedom exists without complaint on the side of Iowa and 
also on the side of Illinois, — but it is done for the sake of 
political power, in order to bring two new slaveholding Sen- 



3o8 



Charles Sumner 



ators upon tliis floor, and thus to fortify in the National 
Government the desperate chances of a waning Oligarchy. 
As the gallant shij) voyaging on pleasant summer seas is 
assailed by a j^irate crew and plundered of its doubloons 
and dollars, so is this beautiful Territory now assailed in 
peace and prosperity and robbed of its political power for 
the sake of Slavery. Even now the black flag of the land 
pirates from Missouri waves at the mast-head; in their laws 
you hear the pirate yell and see the flash of the pirate 
knife; Avhile, incredible to relate, the President, gathering 
the Slave Power at his back, testifles a pirate sympathy. 

Sir, all this was done in the name of Popular Sovereignty. 
And this is the close of the tragedy. Popular Sovereignty, 
whicli, when truly understood, is a fountain of just power, 
has ended in Popular Slavery, — not in the subjection of the 
unhappy African race merely, but of this proud Caucasian 
blood which you boast. The profession with which you be- 
gan of All hif the People is lost in the wretched reality of 
Nothing for the People. Popular Sovereignty, in whose de- 
ceitful name plighted faith was broken and an ancient 
Landmark of Freedom overturned, now lifts itself before 
us like Sin in the terrible picture of ]\Iilton, which 

"seemed woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed 
With mortal sting: about her middle round 
A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing barked 
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and nmg 
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep. 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb. 
And kennel there, yet there still barked and howled 
Within, unseen." 

The image is complete at all points ; and with this exposure 
I take my leave of the Crime against Kansas. 



20. LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE— DOUGLAS'S 
OPENING SPEECH 

(Delivered at Ottawa, 111., August 21, 1858.) 

It was Lincoln's debates with Douglas in 1858 that first 
brought him jjrominently before the whole country and 
(with his Cooper Union speech of February 21, I860) pro- 
cured for him the Republican nomination for the presidency. 

In 1854 Lincoln failed by only four votes in the Illi- 
nois legislature of election to the United States Senate; 
and in 1858 he was again put forward as candidate by the 
Republican State convention at Springfield, in opposition 
to Douglas, who was seeking re-election. Lincoln accepted 
the nomination the same day (June 17th) in a speech clear- 
ly reviewing the national issues ; Douglas replied at Chi- 
cago, July 9th ; and the next evening Lincoln answered 
hin). After further interchanges of speeches, a series of 
seven joint debates was arranged, which took place at Ot- 
tawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, 
and Alton, 111., the first on August 21, the last on October 
15, 1858. The first speaker in each debate was allowed one 
hour, his opponent was given one hour and a half for reply, 
and then the first speaker closed the debate in a rejoinder 
of one-half hour. In this and the following section are 

Stephen Arnold Douglas. Born in Vermont, 1813; removed to New Yoik. in 
1830, and to Illinois in 1833; studied law, and admitted to the bar, 1834; Attorney- 
General, 183-1-35: member of Illinois legislature, 1836; appointed Secretary of 
State (Illinois), 1840; elected Judge of Supreme Court, 1841; in U. S. Congress, 
1843-47; Senator from Illinois, 1847-61; nominated for Presidency by Democratic 
National Convention, at Baltimore, 1860; died, 1861. 

309 



3IO Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

given Douglas's opening speech, and Lincoln's reply; 
Douglas's rejoinder closing the first debate is omitted as 
dealing with personalities of no great importance. 

Douglas was a political leader of first-class ability, and 
was at this time at the height of his career. He had in- 
vented the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, as a solution 
of the slavery question which should prove acceptable alike 
to Northern and Southern Democrats, and looked forward 
with some confidence to his election to the ^^residency in 
1 860. Compared with Lincoln, Douglas w-as better prac- 
ticed in the arts of debate; but in the discussion of prin- 
ciples, the remorseless logic of Lincoln placed Douglas at 
his mercy. Douglas did not, however, make the mistake of 
underrating his awkward and ungainly opponent. "I shall 
have my hands full," he is reported to have said. "He is 
the strong man of his party — full of wit, facts, dates — and 
the best stumj)-speaker, with his droll wa^^s and dry jokes, 
in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd; and if I 
beat him, my victory will be hardly won." (Forney, Anec- 
dotes of Public Men, II, p. 179.) 



[Stephen A. Douglas, at Ottawa, 111., August 21, 185S.] 

LADIES AND Gentlemen: I appear before you to- 
day for the purpose of discussing the leading political 
topics which now agitate the public mind. Bv an ar- 
rangement between Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present 
here today for the purpose of having a joint discussion, as 
the representatives of the two great political parties of the 
State and Union, upon the principles in issue between those 
parties ; and this vast concourse of people shows the deep 
feeling which pervades the public mind in regard to the 
questions dividing us. 

Prior to 1851, this country was divided into two great 
political parties, known as the Whig and Democratic par- 



Douglas's Opening Speech 311 

ties. Both were national and patriotic, advocating princi- 
ples that were universal in their application. An old-line 
Whig could proclaim his principles in Louisiana and Mas- 
sachusetts alike. Whig principles had no boundary sec- 
tional line : they were not limited by the Ohio river, nor by 
the Potomac, nor by the line of the free and slave States, 
but applied and were proclaimed wherever the Constitution 
ruled or the American flag waved over the American soil. So 
it was and so it is with the great Democratic party, which 
from the days of Jefferson until this period has proven itself 
to be the historic party of this nation. While the Whig and 
Democratic parties differed in regard to a bank, the tariff, 
distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, they 
agreed on the great slavery question which now agitates 
the Union. I say that the Whig party and the Democratic 
party agreed on the slavery question, while they differed 
on those matters of expediency to which I have referred. 
The Whig party and the Democratic party jointly adopted 
the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a proper 
and just solution of the slavery question in all its forms. 
Clay was the great leader, with Webster on his right and 
Cass on his left and sustained by the patriots in the Whig 
and Democratic ranks, who had devised and enacted the 
compromise measures of 1850. 

During the session of Congress of 1853-54, I introduced 
into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which 
had been adopted in the compromise measures of 1850, ap- 
proved by the Whig party and the Democratic party in 
Illinois in 1851, and indorsed by the Whig party and the 
Democratic party in national convention in 1852. In order 
that there might be no misunderstanding in relation to the 
principle involved in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, I put 
forth the true intent and meaning of the act in these words : 
"It is the true intent and meaning of this act not to legis- 
late slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it 



312 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to 
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own 
way, subject only to the Federal Constitution." Thus you 
see that up to 1851, when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was 
brought into Congress for the purpose of carrying out the 
principles which both parties had up to that time indorsed 
and approved, there had been no division in this country in 
regard to that principle, except the opposition of the Aboli- 
tionists. 

In 1854< Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Lyman Trumbull 
entered into an arrangement, one with the other, and each 
with his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party 
on the one hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party 
on the other, and to connect the members of both into an 
Abolition party, under the name and disguise of a Repub- 
lican party. The terms of that arrangement between Lin- 
coln and Trumbull have been published by Lincoln's special 
friend, James H. ■\Iatheny, Esq. ; and they were that Lin- 
coln should have General Shield's place in the United States 
Senate, which was then about to become vacant, and that 
Trumbull should have my seat when my term expired. Lin- 
coln went to work to Abolitionize the Old Whig party all 
over the State, pretending that he was then as good a Whig 
as ever; and Trumbull went to work in his part of the State 
23reaching Abolitionism in its milder and lighter form, and 
trying to Abolitionize the Democratic party and bring old 
Democrats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the 
Abolition camp. In pursuance of the arrangement, the 
parties met at Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed 
their new platform. Lincoln was to bring into the Aboli- 
tion camp the old-line Wliigs and transfer them over to 
Giddings, Chase, P'red Douglass, and Parson Lovejoy, who 
were ready to receive them and christen them in their new 
faith. They laid down on that occasion a platform for 
their new Republican party, which was thus to be con- 
structed. I have the resolutions of the State convention 
then held^ which was the first mass State convention ever 



Douglas's Opening Speech 313 

held in Illinois by the Black Republican party; and I now 
hold them in my hands and will read 'a part of them, and 
cause the others to be printed. Here are the most impor- 
tant and material resolutions of this Abolition platform: — 

"Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the re- 
organization of parties, and, repudiating all previous party 
attachments, names, and predilections, we unite ourselves 
together in defense of the liberty and Constitution of the 
country, and w^ill hereafter co-operate as the Republican 
party, pledged to the accomplishment of the following pur- 
poses: to bring the administration of the government back 
to the control of first principles; to restore Nebraska and 
Kansas to the position of free Territories ; that, as the Con- 
stitution of the United States vests in the States and not in 
Congress the power to legislate for the extradition of fugi- 
tives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the fugi- 
tive-slave law; to restrict slavery to those States in which 
it exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more slave States 
into the Union; to abolish slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over 
which the general government has exclusive jurisdiction; 
and to resist the acquirement of any more Territories unless 
the practice of slavery therein forever shall have been pro- 
hibited." 

My object in reading these resolutions was to put the 
question to Abraham Lincoln this day, whether he now 
stands and will stand by each article in that creed, and 
carry it out. [l] I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln 
to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of the uncondi- 
tional repeal of the fugitive-slave law. [2] I desire him 
to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 
1804, against the admission of any more slave States into 
the Union, even if the people want them. [3] I want to 
know whether he stands pledged against the admission of 
a new State into the LTnion with such a constitution as the 



314 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

people of that State may see fit to make. [4] I want to 
know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. [5] I desire him to 
answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the 
slave-trade between the different States. [6] I desire to 
know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all 
the Territories of the United States, north as well as south 
of the Missouri Compromise line. [7] I desire him to 
answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any more 
territor}^ unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his 
answer to these questions. Your affirmative cheers in favor 
of this Abolition platform are not satisfactory. I ask Abra- 
ham Lincoln to answer these questions, in order that, when 
I trot him down to lower Egypt [southernmost Illinois] I 
may put the same questions to him. My principles are the 
same everywhere. I can proclaim them alike in the North, 
the South, the East, and the West. ]\Iy principles will ap- 
ply wherever the Constitution prevails and the American 
flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's princi- 
ples will bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro? I 
put these questions to him to-day distinctly, and ask an an- 
swer. I have a right to an answer ; for I quote from the plat- 
form of the Republican party, made by himself and others 
at the time that party was formed, and the bargain made 
by Lincoln to dissolve and kill the old Whig party and 
transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the Abolition 
party under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass. 

In the remarks I have made on this platform, and the 
position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally 
disrespectful or imkind to that gentleman. I have known 
him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points 
of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We 
were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with 
poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the 
town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in 
the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupa- 
tion than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this 



Douglas's Opening Speech 315 

world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who 
perform with admirable skill everything which they under- 
take. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and, 
when a cabinet-maker, I made a good bedstead and tables, 
although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus 
and secretaries than with anything else; but I believe that 
Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for 
his business enabled him to get into the legislature. I met 
him there, however, and had sympathy with him, because of 
the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just 
as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any 
of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching 
quoits or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all 
the boys together; and the dignity and impartiality with 
which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the ad- 
miration and won the praise of everybody that was present 
and participated. I sympathized with him because he was 
struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln 
served with me in the legislature in 1836, when we both re- 
tired; and he subsided or became submerged, and he was 
lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1 846, 
when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the 
Abolition tornado swejot over the country, Lincoln again 
turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon 
district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and 
was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst 
in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the 
JNIexican AVar, taking the side of the common enemy against 
his own country ; and when he returned home he found 
that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, 
and he was again submerged or obliged to retire into pri- 
vate life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up 
again in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black 
Republican platform, — in company with Giddings, Love- 
joy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, — for the Republican party 
to stand upon. 



3i6 



Lincoln-Douglas Debate 



fc)' 



Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters 
from Wliiggery and deserters from Democracy, and having 
laid down the Abolition platform which I have read, Lin- 
coln now takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doc- 
trines. Let me read a part of them. In his speech at 
Springfield to the convention whicli nominated him for the 
Senate he said : 

"In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself 
can not stand.' I believe this government can not endure 
permonentli/ half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
Union to be dissolved, — I do not expect the house to fall, — 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of tdtimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward 
till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, — old as 
well as new, North as well as South." ["Good," "Good," 
and cheers.^ 

I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say, 
"Good." I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your sen- 
timents; and I will prove to you now, if you will listen to 
me, that it is revolutionary and destructive of the existence 
of this government. Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which 
I have read, says that this government can not endure per- 
manently in the same condition in which it was made by 
its framers — divided into free and slave States. He says 
that it has existed for about seventy years thus divided, and 
yet he tells you that it can not endure permanently on the 
same principles and in the same relative condition in which 
our fathers made it. Why can it not exist divided into free 
and slave States.^ Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, ^Nladi- 
son, Hamilton, Jay, and the great men of that day made 
this government divided into free States and slave States, 
and left each State perfectly free to do as it pleased on 



Douglas's Opening Speech 317 

the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on the same 
principles on which our fathers made it? They knew when 
they framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and 
broad as this, with such a variety of climate, production, 
and interest, the people necessarily required different laws 
and institutions in different localities. They knew that the 
laws and regulations which would suit the granite hills of 
NcAv Hampshire would be unsuited to the rice plantations 
of South Carolina; and they therefore provided that each 
State should retain its own legislature and its own sov- 
ereignty, with the full and complete power to do as it 
pleased within its own limits, in all that was local and not 
national. One of the reserved rights of the States was the 
right to regulate the relations between master and servant, 
on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was 
framed there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of 
which were slaveholding States and one a free State. Sup- 
pose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, 
that the States should all be free or all be slave, had pre- 
vailed; and what would have been the result? Of course, 
the twelve slaveholding States would have overruled the 
one free State ; and slavery would have been fastened b}' a 
constitutional provision on every inch of the American re- 
public, instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, 
to each State to decide for itself. Here I assert that uni- 
formity in the local laws and institutions of the different 
States is neither possible nor desirable. If uniformity had 
been adopted when the government was established, it must 
inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, 
or else the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equal- 
ity everywhere. 

We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the rea- 
son that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and 
privileges of citizenshiiD. That is the first and main reason 
which he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of 



3i8 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

the United States and its decision. I ask you, Are you in 
favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privi- 
leges of citizensliip? Do you desire to strike out of our 
State constitution that clause which keeps slaves and free 
negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to flow 
in, and cover your prairies with black settlements? Do you 
desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, 
in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery* she can send 
one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to 
become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? 
If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them 
to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you 
desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to 
make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to ad- 
judge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black 
Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of 
the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizenshii) in 
any and every form. I believe this government was made 
on tlie white basis. I believe it was made by white men, 
for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever; 
and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, 
men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring 
it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. 

Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the 
little xlbolition orators who go around and lecture in the 
basements of schools and churches, reads from the Declara- 
tion of Independence that all men were created equal, and 
then asks, How can you deprive a negro of that equality 
which God and the Declaration of Independence award to 
him ? He and they maintain that negro equality is guar- 
anteed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the 
Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course 
they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question 
i\Ir. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made 

*Agitation to this end was beprun early in 1857 by B. Gratz Brown in the Mis- 
souri legislature, and continued in his paper, the "Missouri Democrat." 



Douglas's Opening Speech 319 

his equal, and hence is his brother; but, for my own part, 
I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny 
that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. ... I 
do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to 
be the equal of the white man. If he did, he has been a 
long time demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years 
the negro has been a race upon the earth; and during all 
that time, in all latitudes and climates, wherever he has 
wandered or been taken, he has been inferior to the race 
which he has there met. He belongs to an inferior race, 
and must always occupy an inferior position. I do not hold 
that, because the negro is our inferior, therefore he ought 
to be a slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn 
from what I have said. On the contrary, I hold that hu- 
manity and Christianity both require that the negro shall 
have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every im- 
munity consistent with the safety of the society in which 
he lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no di- 
versity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our 
inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, 
every facility and immunity consistent with the public good. 
The question then arises, What rights and privileges are 
consistent with the public good? This is a question which 
each State and each Territory must decide for itself. Illi- 
nois has decided it for herself. We have provided that the 
negro shall not be a slave; and we have also provided that 
he shall not be a citizen, but protect him in his civil rights, 
in his life, his person, and his property, only depriving him 
of all political rights whatsoever and refusing to put him 
on an equality with the white man. That policy of Illinois 
is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me, and if 
it were to the Republicans there would then be no question 
upon the subject; but the Republicans say that he ought 
to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he be- 
comes your equal, with all your rights and privileges. They 
assert the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous because it 



320 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

denies that the negro is or can be a citizen under the Con- 
stitution. 

Now, I hold that Illinois had a riglit to abolish and pro- 
hibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the 
same right to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had 
to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right to 
abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each 
and every State of this Union is a sovereign power, with the 
right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery and 
upon all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only 
question which comes up in this controversy. There is a 
far more important one to j'ou, and that is. What shall be 
do'ne with the free negro.'' ... In relation to the pol- 
icy to be pursued toward the free negroes, we have said 
that they shall not vote; w'hilst Maine, on the other hand, 
has said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, 
and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters 
within her limits. I would never consent to confer the 
right of voting and of citizenship upon a negro, but still I 
am not going to quarrel with Elaine for differing from me 
in opinion. Let jNIaine take care of her own negroes, and 
fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit herself, with- 
out interfering with Illinois; and Illinois will not interfere 
with Maine. So with the State of New York. She allows 
the negro to vote provided he owns two hundred and fifty 
dollars' worth of ]iroperty, but not otherwise. While I 
would not make any distinction whatever between a negro 
who held property and one who did not, yet if the sovereign 
State of New York chooses to make that distinction it is 
her business, and not mine; and I will not quarrel with her 
for it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she 
minds her own business, and we will do the same thing. 
Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and 
rigidly upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, 
Avhich guarantees to each State and Territory the right to 
do as it pleases on all things local and domestic instead of 



Douglas's Opening Speech 321 

Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with 
another. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or 
Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely be- 
cause their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that 
our institutions should differ. They knew that the North 
and the South, having different climates, productions, and 
interests, required different institutions. This doctrine of 
]Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the institutions of the 
different States, is a new doctrine never dreamed of by 
Washington, Madison, or the framers of this government. 
Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves up 
as wiser than these men who made this government, which 
has flourished for seventy years under the principle of 
popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to 
do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown 
from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about 
thirty millions of people. We have crossed the Alleghany 
mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the 
prairie into a garden, and building up churches and schools, 
thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before 
there was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that prin- 
ciple we have become, from a feeble nation, the most power- 
ful on the face of the earth; and, if we only adhere to that 
principle, we can go forward increasing in territory, in 
power, in strength, and in glory until the Republic of 
America shall be the north star that shall guide the friends 
of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can 
we not adhere to the great principle of self-government 
upon which our institutions were originally based? I be- 
lieve that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and 
his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are 
trying to array all the Northern States in one body against 
the South, to excite a sectional war between the Free States 
and the Slave States, in order that the one or the other may 
be driven to the wall. 



21. LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE — LINCOLN'S 
FIRST REPLY 

(Delivered at Ottawa, 111., August 21, 1858.) 

In response to a request from the compiler of the Dic- 
tionary of Congress, Lincoln in 1858 furnished this sketch 
of his life: "Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, 
Kentucky. Education defective. Profession, a lawyer. 
Have been a caj^tain of volunteers in Black Hawk War. 
Postmaster at a very small office. Four times a member of 
the Illinois legislature, and was a member of the lower 
house of Congress." 

With all of his modesty, however, Lincoln was intensely 
ambitious, and looked with something like envy upon the 
career of his lifelong rival Douglas; but his ambition was 
noble and far-seeing. To the urging of his friends that he 
omit the "house divided against itself" passage from his 
speech accepting the nomination for Senator, he had re- 
plied: "That expression is a truth of all human experience. 
I want to use some universally known figure ex- 
pressed in simple language as universally well known, that 
may strike home to the minds of men in order to raise them 
up to the peril of the times; I do not believe I would be 
right in changing or omitting it. I would rather be de- 
feated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and 
discuss it before the people, than be victorious without it." 

Abraham Lincoln. Born in Kentucky, 1809; removed to Indiana, 1816; re- 
moved to Illinois, 1830; admitted to the bar, 1836; member Illinois legislature, 
1834-42; m.ember of Congress, 1847-49; President, 1861-65; assassinated, April 14, 
1865. 

322 



Lincoln's Reply 323 

(Herndon, Life of Lincoln, pp. 398-400.) The opportunity 
for discussion was now his, and that he made the most of it, 
the subjoined speech will show. 

It may here be noted that the seven questions put to 
Lincoln in the foregoing speech (p. 313) were not answered 
by him until the second debate, at Freeport, where Lincoln 
had the opening speech. The answers were practically all 
negatives, except for the reply that he did believe that it 
was the right and dut}'^ of Congress to prohibit slavery in 
all the Territories. Lincoln then asked Douglas four ques- 
tions, of which the chief one was^ "Can the people of a 
United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the 
wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery 
from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitu- 
tion?" Douglas's reply was to the effect that, in spite of 
the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, the peo- 
ple might "by unfriendly legislation eflxctually prevent the 
introduction" of slavery. This "Freeport doctrine" may be 
said to have gained for Douglas his re-election as Senator, 
but lost him his chance of election as President two years 
later bv alienating; from him the Southern Democratic vote. 



[Abraham Lincoln, at Ottawa, 111., August 21, 18.58.] 

MY Fellow Citizens: When a man hears himself 
somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him, — at 
least I iind it so with myself; but when misrep- 
resentation becomes very gross and palpable it is more apt 
to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact 
that Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the his- 
tory of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, that 
Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in 1854 
by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the 
United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the 



324 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

place of Judge Douglas. Now all I have to say upon that 
subject is that I think no man — not even Judge Douglas — 
can prove it, because it is not true. I have no doubt he is 
"conscientious" in saying it. As to those resolutions that 
he took such a length of time to read, as being the platform 
of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never had any- 
thing to do with them; and I think Trumbull never had. 
Judge Douglas can not show that either of us ever did have 
anything to do with them. I believe this is true about those 
resolutions : There was a call for a convention to form a 
Republican party at Springfield ; and I think that my 
friend, Mr. Lovejoy, who is here upon this stand, had a 
hand in it. I think this is true; and I think, if he will re- 
member accurately, he will be able to recollect that he tried 
to get me into it and I would not go in. I believe it is also 
true that I went away from Springfield, when the conven- 
tion was in session, to attend court in Tazewell County. It 
is true they did place m}^ name, though without authority, 
upon the committee, and afterward wrote me to attend the 
meeting of the committee; but I refused to do so, and I 
never had anything to do with that organization. This is 
the plain truth about all that matter of the resolutions. 

Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trum- 
bull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic party, and 
Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I have 
the means of kiiorring about that; Judge Douglas can not 
have ; and I know there is no substance to it whatever. Yet 
I have no doubt he is "conscientious" about it. I know that 
after Mr. Lovejoy got into the legislature that winter he 
complained to me that I had told all the old Whigs of his 
district that the old Whig party was good enough for them, 
and some of them voted against him because I told them 
so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving such charges 
as tliis which the judge makes. A man can not prove a 
negative; but he has a right to claim that, when a man 
makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to 
show the truth of what he savs. I certainlv can not in- 



' Lincoln's Reply 325 

troduce testimony to show the negative about things ; but 
I have a right to claim that, if a man says he knows a 
thing, then he must show how he knows it. I always have 
a right to claim this, and it is not satisfactory to me that 
he may be "conscientious" on the subject. 

Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things, 
but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Doug- 
las makes Avhen he says that I was engaged at that time 
in selling out and Abolitionizing the old Whig party, I 
hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed speech 
that I made then at Peoria, which will show altogether a 
different view of the position I took in that contest of 1854. 
[T'oice: "Put on your specs."^ Yes, sir, I am obliged to 
do so; I am no longer a young man: 

"This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The 
foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every 
particular ; but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the 
uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before 
us the chief materials enabling us to correctly judge 
whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or 
wrong. 

"I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong, — wrong 
in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Ne- 
braska ,^and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it 
to spread to every other part of the wide world where men 
can be found inclined to take it. 

"This declared indifference, but as I must think covert 
real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I 
hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. 
I hate it because it deprives our republican examjjle of its 
just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free in- 
stitutions. Avith plausibility, to tavmt us as hypocrites; causes 
the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and espe- 
cially because it forces so many really good men amongst 
ourselves into an oi^en war with the very fundamental prin- 
ciples of civil liberty, — criticizing the Declaration of Inde- 



326 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

pendence, and insisting that there is no right principle of 
action but self-interest. 

"Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no preju- 
dice against the Southern people. They are just what we 
would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist 
among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now 
exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This 
I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there 
are individuals on both sides wlio would not hold slaves un- 
der any circumstances; and others who would gladly intro- 
duce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know 
that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and 
become tip-top Abolitionists ; while some Northern ones go 
South, and become most cruel slavemasters. 

"When Southern people tell us they are no more respon- 
sible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the 
fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that 
it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, 
I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will 
not blame them for not doing what I should not know how 
to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should 
not know what to do as to the existing institution. My 
first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them 
to Liberia, — to their own native land. But a moment's re- 
flection would convince me that, whatever of high hope (as 
I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its 
sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed 
there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; 
and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money 
enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten 
days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among 
us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their 
condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any 
rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce 
people upon. What next? Free them, and make them po- 
litically and socially our equals ? My own feelings will not 
admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those 



Lincoln's Reply 327 

of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this 
feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the 
sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal 
feeling, whether well or ill founded, can not be safely dis- 
regarded. We can not make them equals. It does seem 
to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopt- 
ed ; but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to 
judge our brethren of the South. 

"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I 
acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; 
and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming 
of their fugitives which should not, in its stringency, be 
more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our ordi- 
nary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. 

"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse 
for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory than 
it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The 
law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and 
that which has so long forbidden the taking of them to 
Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral prin- 
ciple; and the repeal of the former could find quite as 
plausible excuses as that of the latter." 

I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I 
said this. I think he has the answer here to one of the 
questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him to 
catechize me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not 
answer questions one after another, unless he reciprocates; 
but as he has made this inquiry, and I have answered it be- 
fore, he has got it without my getting anything in return. 
He has got my answer on the fugitive-slave law. 

Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any great 
length; but this is the true complexion of all I have ever 
said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black 
race. This is the whole of it; and anything that argues 
me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with 
the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of 



328 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

words, bv which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a 
chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, 
that I have no purpose, either directly or indirectly, to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where 
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I 
have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to intro- 
duce political and social equality between the white and the 
black races. There is a physical difference between the 
two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid 
their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; 
and, inasmuch as it becomes a necessity' that there must be 
a difference, I as well as Judge Douglas am in favor of the 
race to which I belong having the superior position. I have 
never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, not- 
withstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why 
the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated 
in the Declaration of Independence, — the right to life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as 
much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with 
Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects, — cer- 
tainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual en- 
dowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the 
leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my 
equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of 
every living man. 

Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little 
follies. The Judge is wofully at fault about his early 
friend Lincoln being a "grocery-keeper." I don't think 
that it would be a great sin if I had been; but he is mis- 
taken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the 
world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of 
one winter in a little still-house up at the head of a hol- 
low. And so I think my friend, the Judge, is equally at 
fault when he charges me at the time when I was in Con- 
gress of having ojjposed our soldiers who were fighting in 
the IMexican War. The Judge did not make his charge 
very distinctly; but I tell you what he can prove, by refer- 



Lincoln's Reply 329 

ring to the record. You remember I was an Old Whig; 
and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote 
that the war had been righteously begiui by the President, 
I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any money 
or land-warrants or anything to pay the soldiers there, dur- 
ing all that time, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas 
did. You can think as you please as to whether that was 
consistent. Such is the truth; and the Judge has the right 
to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general 
charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the 
soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican Avar, or did any- 
thing else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, 
grossh^ and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the 
records will prove to him. 

As I have not used up so much of my time as I had sup- 
posed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two of these 
minor topics upon which the Judge has spoken. He has 
read from my speech in Springfield in which I say that "a 
house divided against itself can not stand." Does the 
Judge say it can stand? I don't know whether he does or 
not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me just 
now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a 
house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then 
there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, but 
between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher 
character. 

Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for 
the purpose of saying something seriously. I know that 
the Judge may readily enough agree with me that the maxim 
which was put forth by the Savior is true, but he may al- 
lege that I misapply it; and the Judge has a right to urge 
that in my application I do misapply it, and then I have a 
right to show that I do not misapply it. When he under- 
takes to say that, because I think this nation so far as the 
question of slavery is concerned will all become one thing 
or all the other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead 
uniformitv in the various States in all their institutions, he 



330 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

argues erroneously. The great variety of the local institu- 
tions in the States^ springing from differences in the soil, 
differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, 
are bonds of union. They do not make "a house divided 
against itself," but they make a house united. If they pro- 
duce in one section of the country what is called for by the 
wants of another section, and this other section can supply 
the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord, but 
bonds of union, — true bonds of union. But can this ques- 
tion of slavery be considered as among these varieties in the 
institutions of the coimtry .'' I leave it to you to say 
whether, in the history of our government, this institution 
of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, 
and on the contrary been an apple of discord and an ele- 
ment of division in the house. I ask you to consider 
whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds 
shall continue to be the same, after this generation and 
assemblage shall sink into the grave and another race shall 
arise with the same moral and intellectual development we 
have, — whether, if that institution is standing in the same 
irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an 
element of division.^ 

If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this 
question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and 
when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him 
that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years 
in some States, and yet it does not exist in some others, I 
agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the 
position in which our fathers originally placed it, — restrict- 
ing it from the new Territories where it had not gone, and 
legislating to cut off its source by the abrogation of the 
slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its 
spread. The public mind did rest in the belief that it was 
in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think, — 
and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives, — lately, 
I think that he, and those acting with him, have placed that 
institution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity 



Lincoln's Reply 331 

and nationalisation of slavery. And while it is placed upon 
this new basis, I say and I have said that I believe we shall 
not have peace upon the question until the opponents of 
slavery arrest the fui-ther spread of it, and place it where 
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction ; or, on the other hand, that its advo- 
cates will push it forward until it shall become alike law- 
ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South. Now I believe, if we could arrest the spread and 
place it where Washington and Jeiferson and Madison 
jolaced it, it n'ould he in the course of ultimate extinction, 
and the public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe 
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis 
would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a 
hundred years — -if it should live so long — in the States 
where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in 
the way best for both the black and the white races. 

\^A voice: "Then do you repudiate Popular Sover- 
eignty?"] 

Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty ! What 
is Popular Sovereignty.'' Is it the right of the people to 
have slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the Terri- 
tories ? I will state — and I have an able man to watch me 
— my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty, as now 
applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of 
a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does not 
allow them iiot to have it if they do not want it. I do not 
mean that, if this vast concourse of people were in a Ter- 
ritory of the United States, any one of them would be 
obliged to have a slave if he did not want one ; but I do say 
that, as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one 
man wants slaves all the rest have no way of keeping that 
one man from holding them. 

When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the 
Judge complains and from which he quotes, I really was 
not thinking of the things which he ascribes to me at all. 
I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything 



332 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

to bring about a war between the Free and Slave States. 
I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything 
to bring about a political and social equality of the black 
and white races. It never occurred to me that I was doing 
anything or favoring anything to reduce to a dead uniform- 
ity all the local institutions of the various States. But I 
must say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing 
something which leads to these bad results, it is none the bet- 
ter that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, 
if I have any influence in producing it, whether I intend it 
or not. But can it be true that placing this institution ujDon 
the original basis — the basis upon which our fathers placed 
it — can have any tendency to set the Northern and the 
Southern States at war with one another, or that it can 
have any tendency to make the people of Vermont raise 
sugar-cane because they raise it in Louisiana, or that it 
can compel the peojjle of Illinois to cut pine logs on the 
Grand Prairie, where they will not grow, because they cut 
pine logs in ]Maine, where they do grow? The Judge says 
this is a new principle started in regard to this question. 
Does the Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the 
founders of the government.^ I think he says in some of 
his speeches — indeed, I have one here now — that he saw 
evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south of a cer- 
tain line, while north of it it should be excluded ; and he saw 
an indisposition on the part of the country to stand upon 
that policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject 
upon original principles, and upon original principles he 
got up the Nebraska bill! I am fighting it upon these 
"original principles," — fighting it in the Jeffersonian, 
Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion. 

Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while 
to one or two other things in that Sj^ringfield speech. My 
main object was to show, so far as my humble ability was 
capable of showing, to the people of this country what I 
believed was the truth, — that there was a tendency, if not 
a conspiracy, among those who have engineered this slavery 



Lincoln's Reply 333 

question for the last four or five years, to make slavery per- 
petual and universal in this nation. Having made that 
speech principally for that object, after arranging the evi- 
dences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I 
concluded with this bit of comment: 

"We can not absolutely know that these exact adaptations 
are the result of pre-concert; but, when we see a lot of 
framed timbers, different portions of which we know have 
been gotten out at different times and places, and by dif- 
ferent workmen, — Stephen [Senator Douglas], Franklin 
[President Pierce] Roger, [Chief Justice Taney] and 
James [President Buchanan], for instance, — and when we 
see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly 
make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and 
mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions 
of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective 
places, and not a piece too many or too few, — not omitting 
even the scaffolding-, — or if a single piece be lacking, we see 
the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to" yet 
bring such piece in, — in such a case we feel it impossible 
not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger and 
James, all understood one another from the beginning, and 
all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the 
first blow was struck." 

When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago on 
the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 
16th of June, he made an harangue there in which he took 
hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully 
read it ; and, while he paid no attention to this matter at all, 
but complimented me as being a "kind, amiable, and intel- 
ligent gentleman," notwithstanding I had said this, he goes 
on and deduces, or draws out, from my speech this tend- 
ency of mine to set the States at war with one another, to 
make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and 
white people to marry together. Then, as the Judge had 



334 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

complimented me with these pleasant titles, (I must confess 
to my weakness) I was a little "taken;" for it came from 
a great man. I was, not very much accustomed to flattery, 
and it came the sweeter to me. I was rather like the 
Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned 
he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it. 
As the Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up my 
mind that he meant to deal unfairly with me. So I went 
to work to show him that he misunderstood the whole scope 
of my speech, and that I really never intended to set the 
people at war with one another. As an illustration, the 
next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used this 
expression, that I claimed no right under the Constitution, 
nor had I any inclination, to enter into the Slave States and 
interfere with the institutions of slavery. He says upon 
that: Lincoln will not enter into the slave States, but will 
go to the banks of the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! 
He runs on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut style of ar- 
gument, until in the Springfield speech he says, "Unless 
he shall be successful in firing his batteries until he shall 
have extinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall 
be dissolved." Now I don't think that was exactly the way 
to treat "a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know 
if I had asked the Judge to show when or where it was I 
had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the Slave 
States luitil slavery should be extinguished, the Union 
should be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I under- 
stand what he would do. He would say, "I don't mean to 
quote from you, but this was tlie result of what you say." 
But I liave the right to ask, and I do ask now. Did you not 
])ut it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener 
would take it as an expression from me? 

In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I 
thought I might as well attend to my own business a little ; 
and I recalled his attention as well as I could to this charge 
of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his attention 
to the fact that he had acknowledged in my hearing twice 



Lincoln's Reply 335 

that he had carefully read the speech ; and, in the language 
of the lawyers, as he had twice read the speech and still 
had put in no plea or answer, I took a default on him. I 
insisted that I had a right then to renew that charge of con- 
spiracy. Ten days afterward I met the Judge at Clinton, — 
that is to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discussion, 
— and heard him make a speech. Then he comes in with 
his plea to this charge, for the first time; and his plea 
when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to this : 
That he never had any talk with Judge Taney or the Presi- 
dent of the United States with regard to the Dred Scott 
decision before it was made; I (Lincoln) ought to know 
that the man who makes a charge without knowing it to be 
true falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a false- 
hood; and, lastly, that he would pronounce the whole thing 
a falsehood; but he would make no personal application of 
the charge of falsehood, not because of any regard for the 
"kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of his 
own personal self-respect ! I have understood since then 
(but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the Judge 
to it if he is not willing) that he has broken through the 
"self-respect," and has got to saying the thing out. The 
Judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me that 
I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the Judge 
acknowledges that he has been trying to make a question 
of veracity with me. I know the Judge is a great man, 
while I am only a small man ; but I feel that I have got 
him. I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it 
was not filed till after default was taken, and demur to it 
ujjon the merits. What if Judge Douglas never did talk 
with Chief Justice Taney and the President before the 
Dred Scott decision was made: does it follow that he could 
not have had as perfect an understanding without talking 
as with it.^ I am not disposed to stand ujjon my legal ad- 
vantage. I am disposed to take his denial as being like an 
answer in chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, in- 
formation, nor belief in the existence of such a conspiracy. 



336 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as 
though lie had put it in these words. And now, I ask, even 
if he liad done so, have not I a right to prove it on him, and 
to oifer the evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom 
to prove it; and if the evidence proves the existence of the 
conspiracy, does his broad answer denying all knowledge, 
information, or belief, disturb the fact? It can only show 
that he was used by conspirators, and was not a leader of 
them. 

I want to ask your attention to a portion of the 
Nebraska bill which Judge Douglas has quoted: "It being 
the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate 
slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Constitution of the United States." 
Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to argue in 
favor of "Popular Sovereignty,"— the right of the people 
to have slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude slavery 
if they did not want them. "But," said, in substance, a 
Senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), "we more than 
suspect that you do not mean to allow the people to exclude 
slavery if they wish to; and if you do mean it. accept an 
amendment whicli I propose expressly authorizing the 
people to exclude slavery." I believe I have the amend- 
ment here before me which w-as offered, and under 
which the people of the Territory, through their proper 
representatives, might, if they saw fit, prohibit the exist- 
ence of slavery therein. And now I state it as a fact, to 
be taken back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge 
Douglas and those acting with him voted that amendment 
down. I now think that those men who voted it down had 
a real reason for doing so. They know what that reason 
was. It looks to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott de- 
cision pronounced, holding that "under the Constitution" 
the people can not exclude slavery — I say it looks to out- 
siders, poor, simple, "amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as 



Lincoln's Reply 337 

though the niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott 
decision in, — a niche which would have been spoiled by 
adopting the amendment. And now I say again, if this 
was not the reason, it will avail the Judge much more to 
calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what 
that otlier reason was for voting the amendment down than 
swelling himself up to vociferate that he may be provoked 
to call somebody a liar. 

Again, there is in that same quotation from the Nebraska 
bill this clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of 
this bill not to legislate slavery into any Territory or 
State." I have always been puzzled to know what business 
the word "State" had in that connection. Judge Douglas 
knows. He put it there. He knows what he put it there 
for. We outsiders can not say what he put it there for. 
The law they were passing was not about States, and was 
not making provision for States. What was it placed there 
for.^ After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds 
that the people can not exclude slavery from a Territory, 
if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that they 
can not exclude it from a State, we shall discover that when 
the word was originally put there it was in view of some- 
thing which was to come in due time; we shall see that it 
was the other half of something. I now say again, if there 
is any different reason for putting it there. Judge Douglas, 
in a good-humored way, without calling anybody a liar, 
can tell what the reason was. 

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in 
the little time I have left, to which to call your attention ; 
and, as I shall come to a close at the end of that branch, it 
is probable that I sliall not occupy quite all the time allotted 
to me. Although on these questions I would like to talk 
twice as long as I have, I could not enter upon another head 
and discuss it properly without running over my time. I 
ask the attention of the people here assembled and else- 
where to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every 



338 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

day as bearing upon this question of making slavery na- 
tional. Not going back to the records^ but taking the 
speeches he makes, the speeches he made yesterday and day 
before, and makes constantly all over the country, — I ask 
your attention to them. In the first place, what is necessary 
to make the institution national? Not war. There is no 
danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their 
muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, 
march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no 
danger of our going over there and making war upon them. 
Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery.'' 
It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for 
the Supreme Court to decide that no State under the Consti- 
tution can exclude it, just as they have already decided that 
under the Constitution neither Congress nor the Territorial 
legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced 
in, the whole thing is done. This being true, and this being 
the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, let 
us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 
end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is ex- 
erting on public sentiment. In this and like communities, 
public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, 
nothing can fail: without it, nothing can succeed. Conse- 
quently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than 
he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes 
statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. 
This must be borne in mind, as also the additional fact that 
Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great that it is 
enough for many men to profess to believe anything when 
they once find out that Judge Douglas professes to believe 
it. Consider also the attitude he occupies at the head of a 
large party, — a party which he claims has a majority of all 
the voters in the country. 

This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of 
a Territory to exclude slavery, and he does so not because 
he says it is right in itself, — he does not give any opinion 
on that, — but because it has been decided by the court; and. 



Lincoln's Reply 339 

being decided by the courts he is, and you are^ bound to 
take it in your political action as law, — not that he judges 
at all of its merits, but because a decision of the court is to 
him a "Thus saith the Lord." He places it on that ground 
alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing him- 
self unreservedly to this decision commits him to the next 
one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on 
account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a 
"Thus saith the Lord." The next decision, as much as this, 
will be a "Thus saith the Lord." There is nothing that can 
divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing 
that I point out to him that his great prototype. General 
Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. 
It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I 
have said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's 
course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court 
pronouncing a national bank constitutional. He says I did 
not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my recol- 
lection. I say he ought to know better tlian I ; but I will 
make no question about this thing, though it still seems to 
me that I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him, 
though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati plat- 
form, which affirms that Congress can not charter a national 
bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Con- 
gress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another 
piece of history on the question of respect for judicial deci- 
sions, and it is a piece of Illinois history, belonging to a 
time when a large party to which Judge Douglas belonged 
were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of 
Illinois because they had -decided that a Governor could not 
remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story 
in Ford's Historij of Illinois, and I know that Judge Doug- 
las will not deny that he was then in favor of overslaughing 
that decision by the mode of adding five new judges, so as 
to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended 
in the Judge's sitting down on the very bench as one of the 
five new Judges to break down the four old ones. It was 



340 Lincoln-Douglas Debate 

in tliis way precisely that he got his title of judge. Now, 
when the Judge tells me that men appointed conditionally 
to sit as members of a court will have to be catechised be- 
forehand upon some subject, I say, "You know, Judge; you 
have tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose 
the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced 
by such a proceeding, I say, "You know best. Judge; you 
have been through the mill." 

But I can not shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the 
Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean 
no disrespect) that will hang on when he has once got his 
teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg or you may tear away an 
arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out 
to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from 
the beginning of his political life to the present time, with 
attacks upon judicial decisions; I may cut off limb after 
limb of his public record, and strive to wrench from him a 
single dictum of the court, — yet I can not divert him from 
it. He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott decision. These 
things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity 
for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will 
adhere to all other decisions of the same court. [A voice: 
"Give us something besides Dred Scott."^ Yes; no doubt 
you want to hear something that don't hurt. 

Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more 
word and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a 
statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life, — 
Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress 
all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that 
they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our 
independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its an- 
nual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights 
around us; they must penetrate the human soul and eradi- 
cate there the love of liberty; and then, and not till then, 
could they perpetuate slavery in this country ! To my think- 
ing. Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, 
doing that very thing in this community when he says that 



Lincoln's Reply 341 

the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. 
Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Doug- 
las is going back to the era of our Revolution, and to the 
extent of his ability muzzling the cannon which thunders 
its annual joyous return. When he invites any people, will- 
ing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the 
moral lights around us. When he says he "cares not 
whether slavery is voted down or voted up," — that it is a 
sacred right of self-government, — he is, in my judgment, 
penetrating the human soul, and eradicating the light of 
reason and the love of liberty in this American people. And 
now I will only say that when, by all these means and appli- 
ances. Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public senti- 
ment to an exact accordance with his own views, — when 
these vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments, 
— when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his 
principles, and to say all that he says on these mighty ques- 
tions, — then it needs only the formality of the second Dred 
Scott decision, which he indorses in advance, to make sla- 
very alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North 
as well as South. 



22. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, of New York.— THE IR- 
REPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 

(Delivered at Rochester, N. Y., October 21, 1858.) 

Four months after Lincoln first put forth his "house 
divided against itself" doctrine, the same thought was ex- 
pressed independently by Senator Seward in his speech at 
Rochester, N, Y., on the Irrepressible Conflict. The im- 
pression made by Lincoln's speech was considerable^ but 
it was as nothing compared to the furor aroused both North 
and South by Seward's declaration; for Seward was almost 
universally looked upon as the next candidate of the Re- 
publican party for the presidency. 

Of Seward's speech, Mr. Rhodes says: "Few speeches 
from the stump have attracted so great attention or exerted 
so great an influence;" and he rightly describes it as "a 
]jhilip))ic against the Democratic party and its devotion to 
slavery." {Histori/ of the Ignited States from 1850, II, p. 
34'4.) Its author was unquestionably one of the foremost 
statesmen of his time; but liis utterances here fall short 
alike of the trenchant directness of Lincoln's words, and 
Lincoln's downright honesty with the people, of whom he 
was one. There is a strain of fallacious exaggeration run- 
ning through Seward's speech whicii lie, as an upper-class 
statesman appealing to the masses, may have deemed nec- 

WiLi.iAM Henrv Seward. Born in New York State, 1801; graduated from 
Union Collepe, 1820; began the practice of law, at Auburn, N. Y. which was 
thenceforth liis home, IsiS: served for four years as a Whig in the State Senate:' 
Governor of New York, 1838-4-2; United States Senator, 18l<)-(il: member of tlie 
Republican party since 1856: Secretary of State, 18(>1 (iil, siding with President 
Johnson; died, 1872. 

342 



Irrepressible Conflict 343 

essary, but which Lincoln's shrewder sense and keener logic 
avoided. To particularize: slavery, as we can now see, was 
not the cause of the troubles of South America, nor of the 
despotism of Russia; a free labor system does not alone 
secure "universal contentment;" free labor and slave labor 
are not entirely incompatible ; and the attitude of the fathers 
of the Constitution on slavery, and the provisions of that 
document itself, were not altogether what Seward asserted 
them to be. Nevertheless, Seward's speech was unques- 
tionably a great one and it did much to strengthen the Re- 
publican party. 



[William H. Skward, at Rochester, N. Y., October iS, 1858.] 

THE UNMISTAKABLE Outbreaks of zeal which occur all 
around me, show that you are earnest men — and such 
a man am I. Let us therefore, at least for a time, 
pass by all secondary and collateral questions, whether of a 
personal or of a general nature, and consider the main sub- 
ject of the present canvass. The Democratic party — or, to 
speak more accurately, the party which wears that attractive 
name — is in possession of the Federal government. The 
Republicans propose to dislodge tliat party, and dismiss it 
from its high trust. 

The main subject, then, is, whether the Democratic party 
deserves to retain the confidence of the American people. In 
attempting to prove it unworthy, I think that I am not actu- 
ated by prejudices against that party, or by prepossessions 
in favor of its adversary; for I have learned, by some ex- 
perience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are 
found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives 
than in the policies they pursue. 

Our country is a theater which exhibits, in full operation, 
two radically different political systems; the one resting on 
the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of 
voluntary labor of free men. 



344 William H. Seward 

The laborers who are enslaved are all negroes, or persons 
more or less purelj' of African derivation. But this is only 
accidental. The principle of the system is, that labor in 
every society, by whomsoever performed, is necessarily un- 
intellectual, groveling, and base; and that the laborer, 
equally for his own good and for the welfare of the state, 
ought to be enslaved. The white laboring man, whether na- 
tive or foreigner, is not enslaved, only because he can not, 
as yet, be reduced to bondage. 

You need not be told now that the slave svstem is the 
older of the two, and that once it was universal. 

The emancipation of our own ancestors, Caucasians and 
Europeans as they were, hardly dates beyond a period of 
five hundred years. The great melioration of human society 
which modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the incomplete 
substitution of the system of voluntary labor for the old 
one of servile labor, which has already taken place. This 
African slave system is one which, in its origin and in its 
growth, has been altogether foreign from the habits of the 
races which colonized these States, and established civiliza- 
tion here. It was introduced on this new continent as an 
engine of conquest, and for the establishment of mon- 
archical power, by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and 
was rapidly extended by them all over South America, Cen- 
tral America, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits 
are seen in the poverty, imbecility, and anarchy, which now 
pervade all Portuguese and Spanish America. The free- 
labor system is of German extraction, and it was established 
in our country by emigrants from Sweden, Holland, Ger- 
many, Great Britain, and Ireland. 

We justly ascribe to its inflxiences the strength, wealth, 
greatness, intelligence, and freedom, which the whole Amer- 
ican people now enjoy. One of the chief elements of the 
value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happiness. 
The slave system is not only intolerable, unjust, and inhu- 
man towards the laborer, whom, only because he is a laborer, 
it loads down with chains and converts into merchandise, 



Irrepressible Conflict 345 

but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom, only 
because he is a laborer from necessity, it denies facilities 
for employment, and whom it expels from the community 
because it can not enslave and convert him into merchandise 
also. It is necessarily improvident and ruinous because, as 
a general truth, communities' prosper and flourish or droop 
and decline in just the degree that they practice or neglect 
to practice the primary duties of justice and humanity. The 
free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, 
which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and 
therefore is always and everywhere beneficent. 

The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, sus- 
picion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone 
can produce wealth and resources for defense, to the lowest 
degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against 
mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which 
otherwise might be employed in national development and 
aggrandizement. 

The free labor system educates all alike, and by opening 
all the fields of industrial employment, and all the depart- 
ments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of 
all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, 
and brings into the highest possible activity all the 
physical, moral and social energies of the whole state. In 
states where the slave system prevails, the masters, directly 
or indirectly, secure all political power, and constitute a 
ruling aristocracy. In states where the free-labor system 
prevails, universal suffrage necessarily obtains, and the 
state inevitably becomes, sooner or later, a republic or a 
democracy. 

Russia yet maintains slavery, and is a despotism. Most 
of the other European states have abolished slavery, and 
adopted the system of free labor. It was the antagonistic 
political tendencies of the two systems which the first Na- 
poleon was contemplating when he predicted that Europe 
would ultimately be either all Cossack or all republican. 
Never did human sagacity utter a more pregnant truth. 



34^ 



William H. Seward 



The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. 
But tliey are more than incongruous — they are incompatible. 
They never have permanently existed together in one coun- 
try, and they never can. It would be easy to demonstrate 
this impossibility, from the irreconcilable contrast between 
their great principles and characteristics. But the experi- 
ence of mankind has conclusively established it. Slavery, 
as I have already intimated, existed in every state in Eu- 
rope. Free labor has supplanted it everywhere except in 
Russia and Turkey. State necessities developed in modern 
times are now obliging even those two nations to encourage 
and employ free labor, and already, despotic as they are, 
we find them engaged in abolishing slavery. In the United 
States, slavery came into collision with free labor at the close 
of the last century, and fell before it in New England, New 
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but triumphed over it 
effectually, and excluded it for a period yet undetermined, 
from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. Indeed, so in- 
compatible are the two systems, that every new State which 
is organized within our ever extending domain makes its 
first political act a choice of the one and the exclusion of 
the other, even at the cost of civil war, if necessary. The 
slave States, without law, at the last national election, suc- 
cessfully forbade, within their own limits, even the casting 
of votes for a candidate for President of the United States 
supposed to be favorable to the establishment of the free- 
labor system in new States. 

Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different States, 
but side by side within the American Union. This has hap- 
pened because the Union is a confederation of States. But 
in another aspect the United States constitute only one na- 
tion. Increase of population, which is filling the States out 
to their very borders, together with a new and extended net- 
work of railroads and other avenues, and internal commerce, 
which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the 
States into a higher and more perfect social unity or con- 



Irrepressible Conflict 347 

solidation. Thus^ these antagonistic systems are continually 
coming into closer contact, and collision results. 

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who 
think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of inter- 
ested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mis- 
take the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict be- 
tween opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the 
United States must and will, sooner or later, become either 
entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor na- 
tion. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina 
and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be 
tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans be- 
come marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the 
rye-fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York 
must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave cul- 
ture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New 
York become once more markets for trade in the bodies 
and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great 
truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final 
compromise between the slave and free States, and it is the 
existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended 
compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral. Startling 
as this saying may appear to you, fellow citizens, it is by 
no means an original or even a modern one. Our forefathers 
knew it to be true, and unanimously acted upon it when 
they framed the Constitution of the United States. They 
regarded the existence of the servile system in so many of 
the States with sorrow and shame, which they openly con- 
fessed, and they looked upon the collision between them, 
which was then just revealing itself, and which we are now 
accustomed to deplore, with favor and hope. They knew 
that either the one or the other system must exclusively 
prevail. 

Unlike too many of those who in modern time invoke 
their authority, they had a choice between the two. They 
preferred the system of free labor, and they determined to 
organize the government, and so to direct its activity, that 



348 



William H. Seward 



that system should surely and certainly prevail. For this 
purpose, and no other, they based the whole structure of 
government broadly on the principle that all men are cre- 
ated equal, and therefore free — little dreaming that, within 
the short period of one hundred years, their descendants 
would bear to be told by any orator, however popular, that 
the utterance of that principle was merely a rhetorical 
rhapsodv; or by any judge, however venerated, that it was 
attended by mental reservations, which rendered it hypocrit- 
ical and false. By the Ordinance of 1787, they dedicated 
all of the national domain not yet polluted by slavery to 
free labor immediately, thenceforth and forever ; while by 
the new Constitution and laws they invited foreign free 
labor from all lands under the sun, and interdicted the im- 
portation of African slave labor, at all times, in all places, 
and under all circumstances whatsoever. It is true that they 
necessarily and wisely modified this policy of freedom, by 
leaving it to the several States, affected as they were by 
differing circumstances, to abolish slavery in their own way 
and at their own pleasure, instead of confiding that duty to 
Congress ; and that they secured to the slave States, while 
yet retaining the system of slavery, a three-fifths repre- 
sentation of slaves in the Federal government, until they 
should find themselves able to relinquish it with safety. But 
the very nature of these modifications fortifies my position 
that the fathers knew that the two systems could not endure 
within the Union, and expected that within a short period 
slavery would disappear forever. Moreover, in order that 
these modifications might not altogether defeat their grand 
design of a republic maintaining universal equality, they 
provided that two-thirds of the States might amend the 
Constitution. 

It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard 
against misapprehension. If these States are to again be- 
come universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with 
what violations of the Constitution that end shall be accom- 
plished. On the other hand, while I do confidentlv believe 



Irrepressible Conflict 349 

and hope that my country will yet become a land of uni- 
versal freedom^ I do not expect that it will be made so 
otherwise than through the action of the several States co- 
operating with the Federal government, and all acting in 
strict uniformity with their respective constitutions. 

The strife and contentions concerning slavery, which gen- 
tly-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing 
more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers 
themselves not only thus regarded with favor, but which 
they may be said to have instituted. 

It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the course 
of that contest has not been according to their humane an- 
ticipations and wishes. In the field of Federal politics, 
slavery, deriving unlooked-for advantages from commercial 
changes, and energies unforeseen from the facilities of 
combination between members of the slaveholding class and 
between that class and other property classes, early rallied, 
and has at length made a stand, not merely to retain its 
original defensive position, but to extend its sway through- 
out the whole Union. It is certain that the slaveholding 
class of American citizens indulge this high ambition, and 
that they derive encouragement for it from the rapid and 
effective political successes which they have already ob- 
tained. The plan of operation is this : By continued appli- 
ances of patronage and threats of disunion, they will keep 
a majority favorable to these designs in the Senate, where 
each State has an equal representation. Through that ma- 
jority they will defeat, as they best can, the admission of 
free States and secure the admission of slave States. Under 
the protection of the judiciary, they will, on the principle 
of the Dred Scott case, carry slavery into all the Territories 
of the United States now existing and hereafter to be or- 
ganized. By the action of the President and the Senate, 
using the treaty-making power, they will annex foreign 
slaveholding States. In a favorable conjuncture they will 
induce Congress to repeal the act of 1808, which prohibits 
the foreign slave trade, and so they will import from Africa, 



350 William H. Seward 

at the cost of only twenty dollars a head, slaves enough to 
fill up the interior of the continent. Thus relatively in- 
creasing the number of slave States, they will allow no 
amendment to the Constitution prejudicial to their interest; 
and so, having permanently established their power, they 
expect the Federal judiciary to nullify all State laws which 
shall interfere with internal or foreign commerce in slaves. 
When the free States shall be sufficiently demoralized to 
tolerate these designs, they reasonably conclude that slavery 
will be accepted by those States themselves. I shall not 
stop to show how speedy or how complete would be the 
ruin which the accomplishment of these slaveholding 
schemes would bring upon the coiuitry. P'or one, I should 
not remain in the country to test the sad experiment. Hav- 
ing spent my manhood, though not m}' whole life, in a free 
State, no aristocracy of any kind, much less an aristocracy 
of slaveholders, shall ever make the laws of the land in 
wliich I shall be content to live. Having seen the society 
around me universally engaged in agriculture, manufac- 
tures and trade, which were innocent and beneficent, I shall 
never be a denizen of a State where men and women are 
reared as cattle, and bought and sold as merchandise. Wlien 
that evil day shall come, and all further effort at resistance 
shall be impossible, then, if there shall be no better hope for 
redemption than I can now foresee, I shall say with Frank- 
lin, while looking abroad over tlie wliole earth for a new 
and more congenial home, "Where liberty dwells, there is 
my country." 

You will tell me that these fears are extravagant and 
chimerical. I answer, they are so; but they are so only 
because the designs of the slaveholders must be and can be 
defeated. But it is only the possibility of defeat that ren- 
ders them so. They can not be defeated by inactivity. 
There is no escape from them, compatible with non-resist- 
ance. How, then, and in what way, shall the necessary re- 
sistance he made? There is only one way. The Democratic 
party must be permanently dislodged from the Government. 



Irrepressible Conflict 351 

The reason is, that the Democratic party is inextricably 
committed to the designs of the slaveholders, which I have 
described. Let me be well understood. I do not charge 
that the Democratic candidates for public office now before 
the people are pledged to — much less that the Democratic 
masses who support them really adopt — those atrocious and 
dangerous designs. Candidates may, and generally do, 
mean to act justly, wisely and patriotically, when they shall 
be elected ; but they become the ministers and servants, not 
the dictators, of the power which elects them. The policy 
which a party shall pursue at a future period is onlj^ gradu- 
ally developed, depending on the occurrence of events never 
fully foreknown. The motives of men, whether acting as 
electors or in any other capacity, are generally pure. Nev- 
ertheless, it is not more true that "hell is paved with good 
intentions," than it is that earth is covered with wrecks re- 
sulting from innocent and amiable motives. 

The very constitution of the Democratic party commits 
it to execute all the designs of the slaveholders, whatever 
they may be. It is not a party of the whole Union, of all 
the free States and of all the slave States ; nor yet is it 
a party of the free States in the North and in the North- 
west ; but it is a sectional and local party, having practically 
its seat within the slave States, and counting its constitu- 
ency chiefly and almost exclusively there. Of all its repre- 
sentatives in Congress and in the electoral colleges, two- 
thirds uniformly come from these States. Its great element 
of strength lies in the vote of the slaveholders, augmented 
by the representation of three-fifths of the slaves. Deprive 
the Democratic party of this strength, and it would be a 
helpless and hopeless minority, incapable of continued or- 
ganization. The Democratic partv, being thus local and 
sectional, acquires new strength from the admission of 
every new slave State into the Union. 

A party is in one sense a joint stock association, in which 
those who contribute most direct the action and management 
of the concern. The slaveholders contributing in an over- 



3152 William H. Seward 

whelming proportion to the capital strength of the Demo- 
cratic party, they necessarily dictate and prescribe its pol- 
icy. The inevitable caucus system enables them to do so 
with a show of fairness and justice. If it were possible to 
conceive for a moment that the Democratic party should 
disobey the behests of the slaveholders, we should then see 
a withdrawal of the slaveholders, which would leave the 
party to perish. The portion of the party which is found 
in the free States is a mere appendage, convenient to mod- 
ify its sectional character, without impairing its sectional 
constitution, and is less effective in regulating its movement 
than the nebulous tail of the comet is in determining the 
appointed though apparently eccentric course of the fiery 
sphere from which it emanates. 

To expect the Democratic party to resist slavery and 
favor freedom, is as unreasonable as to look for Protestant 
missionaries to the Catholic propaganda of Rome. The 
history of the Democratic party commits it to the policy of 
slavery. It has been the Democratic party, and no other 
agency, which has carried that policy up to its present 
alarming culmination. Without stopping to ascertain, crit- 
ically, the origin of the present Democratic party, we may 
concede its claim to date from the era of good feeling which 
occurred under the administration of President Monroe. At 
that time, in this State, and about that time in many others 
of the free States, the Democratic party deliberately dis- 
franchised the free colored African citizen, and it has per- 
tinaciously continued this disfranchisement ever since. This 
was an effective aid to slavery; for, while the slaveholder 
votes for his slaves against freedom, the freed slave in the 
free States is prohibited from voting against slavery. 

Such is the Democratic part^^ It has no policy. State or 
Federal, for finance, or trade, or manufacture, or commerce, 
or education, or internal improvements, or for the protec- 
tion or even the security of civil or religious liberty. It is 
positive and uncompromising in the interest of slavery — 
negative, compromising, and vacillating, in regard to every- 



Irrepressible Conflict 353 

thing else. It boasts its love of equality, and wastes its 
strength, and even its life, in fortifying the only aristoc- 
racy known in the land. It professes fraternity, and, so 
often as slavery requires, allies itself with proscription. 
It magnifies itself for conquests in foreign lands, but it 
sends the national eagle forth always with claims, and not 
the olive branch, in its fangs. 

This dark record shows you, fellow citizens, what I was 
unwilling to announce at an earlier stage of this argimient, 
that of the whole nefarious schedule of slaveholding de- 
signs which I have submitted to you, the Democratic party 
has left only one yet to be consummated — the abrogation of 
the law which forbids the African slave trade. 

Now, I know very well that the Democratic party has, 
at every stage of these proceedings, disavowed the motive 
and the policy of fortifying and extending slavery, and has 
excused them on entirely different and more plausible 
grounds. But the inconsistency and frivolity of these pleas 
prove still more conclusively the guilt I charge upon that 
party. It must, indeed, try to excuse such guilt before man- 
kind, and even to the consciences of its own adherents. 
There is an instinctive abhorrence of slavery, and an inborn 
and inhering love of freedom in the human heart, which 
render palliation of such gross misconduct indispensable. 
It disfranchised the free African on the ground of a fear 
that, if left to enjoy the right of suffrage, he might seduce 
the free white citizens into amalgamation with his wronged 
and despised race. The Democratic party condemned and 
deposed John Quincy Adams, because he expended twelve 
millions a year, while it justified his favored successor in 
spending seventy, eighty and even one hundred millions, a 
year. It denies emancipation in the District of Columbia, 
even with compensation to masters and the consent of the 
people, on the ground of an implied constitutional inhibi- 
tion, although the Constitution expressly confers upon Con- 
gress sovereign legislative power in that district, and al- 
though the Democratic party is tenacious of the principle 



3 54 William H. Seward 

of strict construction. It violated the express provisions of 
the Constitution in suppressing petition and debate on the 
subject of slavery, through fear of disturbance of the pub- 
lic harmony; although it claims that the electors have a 
right to instruct their representatives, and even demand 
their resignation in cases of contumacy. It extended slavery 
over Texas, and connived at the attempt to spread it across 
the Mexican territories, even to the shores of the Pacific 
Ocean, under a plea of enlarging the area of freedom. It 
abrogated the Mexican slave law and the Missouri Compro- 
mise prohibition of slavery in Kansas, not to open the new 
Territories to slavery, but to try therein the new and fasci- 
nating theories of non-intervention and popular sovereignty ; 
and, finally, it overthrew both these new elegant systems by 
the English-Lecompton bill and the Dred Scott decision, on 
the ground that the free States ought not to enter the union 
without a population equal to the representative basis of 
one member of Congress, although slave States might come 
in without inspection as to their numbers. 

Will any member of the Democratic party now here claim 
that the authorities chosen by the suffrages of the party 
transcended their partisan platforms, and so misrepresented 
the party in the various transactions, I have recited.^ Then 
I ask him to name one Democratic statesman or legislator, 
from Van Buren to Walker, who, either timidly or cau- 
tiously like them, or boldly and defiantly like Douglas, ever 
refused to execute a behest of the slaveholders and was not 
therefor, and for no other cause, immediately denounced, 
and deposed from his trust, and repudiated by the Demo- 
cratic i^arty for that contumacy. 

I think, fellow citizens, that I have shown you that it is 
high time for the friends of freedom to rush to the rescue 
of the Constitution, and that their very first duty is to dis- 
miss the Democratic party from the administration of the 
government. 

Why shall it not be done? All agree that it ought to be 
done. What, then, shall prevent its being done? Nothing 



Irrepressible Conflict 355 

but timidity or division of the opponents of the Democratic 
party. 

Some of these opponents start one objection, and some 
another. Let us notice these objections briefly. One class 
say that they can not trust the Republican party; that it 
has not avowed its hostility to slavery boldly enough, or its 
aifection for freedom earnestly enough. 

I ask in reply, is there any other party which can be 
more safely trusted.'' Every one knows that it is the Repub- 
lican party, or none, that shall displace the Democratic 
party. But I answer, further, that the character and fidelity 
of any party are determined, necessarily, not by its pledges, 
progranmies, and platforms, but by the public exigencies, 
and the temper of the people when the}^ call it into activity. 
Subserviency to slavery is a law written not only on the 
forehead of the Democratic party, but also in its very soul, 
— so resistance to slavery, and devotion to freedom, the pop- 
ular elements now actively working for the Republican 
party among the people, must and will be resources for its 
ever-renewing strength and constant invigoration. 

Others can not support the Republican party, because it 
has not sufficiently exposed its platform, and determined 
what it will do, and what it will not do, when triumphant. 
It may prove too progressive for some, and too conservative 
for others. As if any party ever foresaw so clearly the 
course of future events as to plan a universal scheme of 
future action, adapted to all possible emergencies. Who 
would ever have joined even the Whig party of the Revolu- 
tion, if it had been obliged to answer, in 1775, whether it 
would declare for independence in 1776, and for this noble 
Federal Constitution of ours in 1787, and not a year earlier 
or later.'' The people will be as wise next year, and even 
ten years hence, as we are now. They will oblige the Re- 
publican party to act as the public welfare and the interests 
of justice and humanity shall require, through all the stages 
of its career, whether of trial or triumph. 

Others will not venture an effort, because they fear that 



31:6 William H. Seward 

the Union would not endure the change. Will such objectors 
tell me how long a constitution can bear a strain directly 
along the fibers of which it is composed ? This is a Consti- 
tution of freedom. It is being converted into a Constitu- 
tion of slavery. It is a republican Constitution. It is be- 
ing made an aristocratic one. Others wish to wait until 
some collateral questions concerning temperance, or the 
exercise of the elective franchise, are properly settled. Let 
me ask all such persons, whether time enough has not been 
wasted on these points already, without gaining any other 
than this single advantage, namely, the discovery that only 
one thing can be effectually done at one time, and that the 
one thing which must and will be done at any one time is 
just that thing which is most urgent, and will no longer 
admit of postponement or delay? Finallj^, we are told by 
faint-hearted men that they despond ; the Democratic party, 
tliey say, is unconquerable, and the dominion of slavery is 
consequently inevitable. I reply that the complete and uni- 
versal dominion of slavery would be intolerable enough, 
when it should have come, after the last possible effort to 
escape should have been made. There would then be left 
to us the consoling reflection of fidelity to duty. 

But I reply further, that I know — few, I think, know 
better than I — the resources and energies of the Democratic 
party, which is identical with the slave power. I do ample 
prestige to its traditional popularity. I know, further — 
few, I think, know better than I — the difficulties and dis- 
advantages of organizing a new political force, like the Re- 
])ubliean party, and the obstacles it must encounter in 
laboring without prestige and without patronage. But, un- 
derstanding all this, I know that the Democratic party must 
go down, and that the Republican party must rise into its 
place. The Democratic party derived its strength, origi- 
nally, from its adoption of the principles of equal and exact 
justice to all men. So long as it practiced this principle 
faithfully, it was invulnerable. It became vulnerable when 
it renounced the principle, and since that time it has main- 



Irrepressible Conflict 357 

tained itself, not b}^ virtue of its own strength, or even of 
its traditional merits, but because there as yet had appeared 
in the political field no other party that had the conscience 
and the courage to take up, and avow, and practice the life- 
inspiring principle which the Democratic party had sur- 
rendered. At last, the Republican party has appeared. It 
avows, now, as the Republican party of 1800 did, in one 
word, its faith and its works, "Equal and exact justice to 
all men." Even when it first entered the field, only half or- 
ganized, it struck a blow which only just failed to secure 
complete and triumphant victory. In this, its second cam- 
paign, it has already won advantages which render that tri- 
umph now both easy and certain. 

The secret of its assured success lies in that very charac- 
teristic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its great 
and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that 
it is a party of one idea ; but that idea is a noble one, — an 
idea that fills and expands all generous souls ; the idea of 
equality, — the equality of all men before human tribunals 
and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tri- 
bunal and Divine laws. 

I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I 
know, and all the world knows, that revolutions never go 
backward. Twenty Senators and a hundred Representa- 
tives proclaim boldly in Congress to-day sentiments and 
opinions and principles of freedom which hardly so many 
men, even in this free State, dared to utter in their own 
homes twenty years ago. While the government of the 
United States, under the conduct of the Democratic party, 
has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle 
after another to slavery, the people of the United States 
have been no less steadily and perseveringly gathering to- 
gether the forces with which to recover back again all the 
fields and all the castles which have been lost, and to con- 
found and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers of 
the Constitution and freedom forever. 



Civil War and Reconstruction 

Into the multitude of speeches dealing with military 
matters and the conduct of the war it does not seem exi^edi- 
ent, in this book, to enter. One exception to this rule, per- 
haps, may be noted — the inclusion of Lincoln's Gettysburg 
address: but this speech, though ostensibly a dedication of 
a military cemetery for those who fell in the most critical 
battle of the war, is so transformed by Lincoln's elevation 
of thought and noble simplicity of language as to become a 
paean of patriotism, and an exposition of the ideals which 
animated the North in its struggle for national existence. 

The first of the speeches in the order of time, and also 
the logical opening of this subdivision, is that of Jefferson 
Davis, the future President of the Confederacy, on taking 
leave of the Senate (January 21, I86I). Here are briefly 
set forth the doctrines of Secession — doctrines which, more 
fully uttered, were the theme of countless earlier speeches 
of Davis and his Southern colleagues. In Lincoln's First 
Inaugural (March 1, I86I) we find the answer which that 
"patient, far-seeing" master of men — "dreading praise, not 
blame" — gave to the accomplished fact of Secession. 

The speech of Alexander H. Stephens on the Confeder- 
ate Constitution — the so-called "corner-stone speech" — 
(March 21, I86I), shows the frank acceptance by the 
South of slavery as the moral and economic basis of the 
new Confederacy. The speech is also interesting for its 

358 



Civil War and Reconstruction 359 

explanation of the innovations on the Federal^ Constitution, 
— many of them admirable, — which the South made to rem- 
edy defects in the repudiated Constitution, revealed by 
three-quarters of a century of experience. 

Following this comes the able, persuasive speech of 
Henry Ward Beecher at Liverpool, October l6, 1863. The 
outspoken hostility with which certain classes in Great 
Britain regarded the North is revealed in the constant in- 
terruptions to which the speaker was exposed; while the 
speech itself shows Mr. Beecher's efforts to strengthen the 
hands of the friends of the United States in hindering any 
outside interference in our domestic quarrel. 

Lincoln's Second Inaugural (March 4, 1865), which is 
next given, is valuable not only for its literary excellence, 
but because it shows the temper in which, as the war ap- 
proached its end, Lincoln looked forward to the yet larger 
and more trying problems of reconstruction. Its closing 
words, "With malice towards none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right," 
etc., have become an imperishable treasure of English 
speech, ranking with cherished quotations from the Bible 
and Shakespeare. 

"In none of the rebel States," says Professor Dunning, 
in his recent volume entitled Reconstruction, Political and 
Economic (p. 10), "did the war leave either an economic 
organization that could carry on the ordinary operations 
of production, or a political organization that could hold 
society together." To the various aspects of the indispensa- 
ble Reconstruction of the revolted States six selections are 
here devoted. 

The political aspects of the question we first openly ap- 
proach in President Johnson's initial message to Congress 
(December 4, 1865) — now known to be the product of 
George Bancroft's pen — in which are embodied something 



360 Select Orations 

of the moderation and wisdom of Lincoln's policy. This 
"presidential plan/' however, met with speedy rejection at 
the hands of Congress; for its members were impassioned 
by the hatreds of the war, filled with impractical philan- 
thropy for the negro, angered by Johnson's tactlessness and 
boorishness, jealous of their own authority, and ruled by 
leaders who thought as much of partisan control and the 
continued triumph of their economic and financial policies 
as of the restoration of real peace and imion. 

As illustrative of the policy of the radical reconstruc- 
tionists, there is next given a speech delivered January 3, 
1867, by Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, who at this 
time was the unquestioned leader of the Republican party in 
the House of Representatives. 

Out of the dispute between Congress and the President 
came the impeachment of Johnson "of high crimes and mis- 
demeanors," and his trial in 186"8 before the Senate, sitting 
as a court of impeachment. This most interesting episode 
is illustrated by the speech delivered in defense of the 
President by ex- Justice of the Supreme Court Benjamin R. 
Curtis ; this is not only an excellent summary of the whole 
case, but as a piece of logical analysis and forensic argu- 
ment is scarcely to be matched in American oratory. 

In the next selection, the masterly plea of Senator Carl 
Schurz for a general amnesty after the war (January 30, 
1872), the reasons for a generous policy toward the con- 
quered are set forth with a breath of knowledge and clear- 
ness of grasp and statement which carried conviction to all 
minds except those closed by interest and passion. 

The last two selections — Henry W. Grady's oration on 
"The New South" (1886), and Booker T. Washington's 
address at the Atlanta Exposition on "The Race Problem" 
(I895) — belong to a time subsequent to what is usually con- 
sidered the close of the Reconstruction period. They are in- 



Civil War and Reconstruction 361 

eluded here, however, for what seems sufficient reason. The 
first presents a picture of the economic reconstruction of the 
South, and breathes forth a spirit of reconciliation which 
marks the passing of the rancors of the war. And the 
second constitutes the most notable statement of the new 
solution of that race problem which was left by the war — 
the material and moral regeneration of the negro race 
through industrial education and the inculcation of ideas 
of thrift and right living. 

For the further study of this period the best single work 
is Rhodes's History of the United States from the Compro- 
mise of 1850, Vols. V-VII. Other excellent works are 
Dunning's Civil War and Reconstruction; Dunning's Re- 
construction, Political and Economic; Wilson's Division and 
Reunion; Wilson's History of the American People, Vol. V; 
Johnston- Woodburn's American Political History, Vol. II; 
Burgess's Reconstruction and the Constitution; Blaine's 
Twenty Years of Congress; Cox's Three Decades of Fed- 
eral Legislation; Morse's Abraham Lincoln; Nicolay and 
Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History; McCall's Thaddeus 
Stevens. 



23. JEFFERSON DAVIS, of Mississippi.— ON WITH- 
DRAWING FROM THE UNION 

(Farewell address to the Senate, January 21, 1861.) 

The election of Lincoln in I860 put an end to a period 
of thirty-two years in whicli the Slave power controlled the 
Presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives (ex- 
cept for two Congresses), and practically the Supreme 
Court. For some time, however, that control had been loos- 
ening: the House elected for 1859-61 was RejDublican by 
a small majority; and although the Senate was still strongly 
pro-slavery, the fact that since the admission of Minnesota 
(1858) and Oregon (1859) the free States numbered 18 
as against 15 slaveholding States, threatened Southern 
domination in that branch also. In these circumstances 
the election to the Presidency of a "Black Republican" 
was taken as a sign of the final passing of power to the 
free States, and was answered by Secession. 

The very day after the election. South Carolina took 
steps for a convention, which on December 20, I860, unani- 
mously voted to withdraw the State from the Union. Dur- 
ing the month of January, 1861, six other States passed 
Secession ordinances, by votes ranging from l66 to 7 in 
Texas, to l65 to 130 in Alabama. The other four States 

Jefferson Davis. Born in Kentucky, IHOS, but removed while an infant to 
Mississippi; graduated from West Point Military Academy and entered the 
army, 1828: resigned from the army, 1835: in Congress, 1845-46: served as Briga- 
dier-General in the Mexican War; in the Senate, 1847-50, 1857-61: Secretary of 
War under President Pierce, 1S:);V57: President of the Confederacy, 1861-65; 
arrested for treason and confined in Fortress Monroe for two years, but never 
tried; published "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," 1881; died, 1889. 

362 



Withdrawing from the Union 363 

which seceded did not act until after the attack on Fort 
Sumter^ and President Lincohi's call for troops, in April, 
1861. 

As each State seceded, its Senators and Representatives 
formally withdrew from Congress, the Representatives 
usually without speeches of farewell, the Senators with 
valedictories in many cases of great power and effective- 
ness. Of these speeches, the most important perhaps is 
that delivered January 21, 1861, by Jefferson Davis of 
Mississippi, the ablest Senator from the South, and one of 
the triumvirate (with Toombs and Hunter) who chiefly di- 
rected Southern policy. His speech was delivered after a 
sleepless night caused by physical and mental distress. The 
setting of the scene is described as follows by the wife of 
Senator Clement C. Clay of Alabama (whose valedictory 
was j^ronounccd the same day) in her book of reminiscences 
entitled A Belle of the Fifties: 

"The galleries of the Senate, which held, it is estimated, 
a thousand people, were packed, principally with women, 
who, trembling with excitement, awaited the announcements 
of the day, as one by one Senators David Yulee, Stephen 
K. Mallory, Clement C. Clay, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, and 
Jefferson Davis arose. ... As each Senator, speak- 
ing for his State, concluded his solemn renunciation of al- 
legiance to the United States, Avomen grew hysterical and 
waved their handkerchiefs, encouraging them with cries of 
sympathy and admiration. ]Men wept and embraced each 
other mournfully. . . . Scarcely a member of that 
senatorial body but was pale with the terrible significance 
of the hour. There was everywhere a feeling of suspense, 
as if visibly the pillars of the temple were being withdrawn 
and the great governmental structure was tottering; nor 
was there a patriot on either side who did not deplore and 
whiten before the evil that brooded so low over the nation." 



364 Jefferson Davis 

[Jefferson Davis, in the U. S. Senate, January 21, 1801.] 

I RISE, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing 
to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that 
the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her 
jaeople in convention assembled, has declared her sepa- 
ration from the United States. Under these circumstances, 
of course, my functions are terminated here. It has seemed 
to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate 
to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but 
very little more. The occasion does not invite me to go 
into argument; and my physical condition would not per- 
mit me to do so if it were otherwise: and yet it seems to 
become me to say something on the part of the State I rep- 
resent, on an occasion so solemn as this. 

It is known to Senators who have served with me here 
that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attri- 
bute of State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede 
from the Union. Therefore, if I had not believed there 
was justifiable cause, — if I had thought that Mississippi 
was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an ex- 
isting necessity, — I should still, under my theory of the 
government, because of my allegiance to the State of which 
I am a citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, 
may be permitted to say that I do think she has justifiable 
cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred with her 
people before that act was taken, — ^counseled them then 
that if the state of things which they apprehended should 
exist when the convention met, they should take the action 
which they have now adopted. 

I hope none who hear me will confound this expression 
of mine with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain 
in the Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations 
by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. 
Nullification and secession^ so often confounded, are in- 
deed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy 
which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against 
the agent of the States. It is only to be justified when 



Withdrawing from the Union 365 

the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a 
State, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the 
agent thus to act, and appeals to the other States of the 
Union for a decision; but when the States themselves, and 
when the people of the States have so acted as to convince 
us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then, 
and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession 
in its practical application. 

A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who 
has been often arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, 
advocated the doctrine of nullification, because it preserved 
the Union. It was because of his deep-seated attachment 
to the Union, his determination to find some remedy for 
existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound 
South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun ad- 
vocated the doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed 
to be peaceful, to be within the limits of State power, not 
to disturb the Union, but only to be a means of bringing 
the agent before the tribunal of the States for their judg- 
ment. 

Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is 
to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. 
There was a tiipe when none denied it. I hope the time 
may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory 
of our government, and the inalienable rights of the peo- 
ple of the States, will prevent any one from denying that 
each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants 
which it has made to any agent whomsoever. 

I therefore say I concur in the action of the people of 
Mississippi, believing it to be necessary and proj^er, and 
should have been bound by their action if my belief had 
been otherwise; and this brings me to the im^^ortant point 
which I wish on this last occasion to present to the Senate. 
It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that 
the name of a great man, whose ashes now mingle with his 
mother earth, has been invoked to justify coercion against 
a seceded State. The phrase "to execute the laws" was an 



366 Jefferson Davis 

expression which General Jackson ap}3lied to the case of a 
State [South Carolina, in 1832] refusing to obey the laws 
while yet a member of the Union. This is not the case 
which is now presented. The laws are to be executed over 
the United States, and upon the people of the United States. 
Thej' have no relation to any foreign country. It is per- 
version of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of 
the case, which cites that expression for application to a 
State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make 
war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, 
they may make war against a State which has withdrawn 
from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States 
to be executed within the limits of a seceded State. A State 
finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has 
judged she is, in which her safety requires that she should 
I^rovide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union, 
surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be 
many), deprives herself of the advantages (they are known 
to be great), severs all the ties of affection (and thej^ are 
close and enduring), which have bound her to the Union; 
and thus divesting herself of every benefit, taking upon her- 
self every burden, she claims to be exempt from any power 
to execute the laws of the United States within her limits. 
I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was ar- 
raigned before the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine 
of coercion was rife and to be applied against her be- 
cause of the rescue of a fugitive slave [Shadrach in 1851] 
in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. 
Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influ- 
enced in my opinion because the case is my own, I refer to 
that time and tliat occasion as containing the opinion which 
I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is 
based. I then said, "If Massachusetts (following her 
through a stated line of conduct) chooses to take the last 
step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to 
go ; and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce 
her back, but will say to her, God speed, in memory of the 



Withdrawing from the Union 367 

kind associations which once existed between her and the 
other States." 

It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, — it has 
been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the 
rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, — which has 
brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has 
heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free 
and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her 
social institutions. The sacred Declaration of Independ- 
ence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes 
for which it was made. The communities were declaring 
their independence; the people of those communities were 
asserting that no man was born — to use the language of Mr. 
Jefferson — booted and spurred to ride over the rest of man- 
kind; that men were created equal — meaning the men of 
the political community ; that there was no divine right to 
rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there 
were no classes by which power and place descended to 
families, but that all stations were equally within the grasp 
of each member of the body-politic. These were the great 
principles they announced ; these were the purposes for 
which they made their Declaration ; these were the ends to 
which their enunciation was directed. They have no refer- 
ence to the slave; else, how happened it that among the 
items of arraignment made against George III. was that he 
endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring 
of late to do — to stir up insurrection among our slaves ? 
Had the Declaration announced that the negroe§ were free 
and equal, how was the prince to be arraigned for stirring 
up insurrection among them.'' And how was this to be enu- 
merated among the high crimes which caused the Colonies 
to sever their connection with the mother country? When 
our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered 
more palpable; for there we find provision made for that 
very class of persons as property: they were not put upon 
the footing of equality with white men, — not even upon that 
of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was 



368 Jefferson Davis 

concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only 
to be represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths. 

Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us 
together; we recur to the principles upon which our govern- 
ment was founded : and when you deny them, and when you 
deny to us the right to withdraw from a government which 
tluis perverted threatens to be destructive of our rights, we 
but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our 
independence, and take the hazard. This is done not in 
hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, 
not even for our own pecuniary benefit ; but from the high 
and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights 
we inherited, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit 
unshorn to our children. 

I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling 
of my constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hos- 
tility to you. Senators from the North. I am sure there is 
not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have 
been between us, to whom I can not now say, in the presence 
of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure, is the 
feeling of the people whom I represent towards those whom 
you represent. I therefore feel that I but exiDress their de- 
sire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceful rela- 
tions with you, though we must part. They may be mutu- 
ally beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the 
past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on 
every portion of the country: and if you will have it thus, 
we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them 
from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages 
of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God, and in our 
own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right 
as best we may. 

In the course of my service here, associated at different 
times with a great variety of Senators, — I see now around 
me some with whom I have served long, — there have been 
points of collision ; but wliatevcr of offense there has been 
to me, I leave here ; I carrv with me no liostile remembrance. 



Withdrawing from the Union 369 

Whatever offense I have given which has not been redressed, 
or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have. 
Senators, in this hour of parting, to offer you my apologj^ 
for any pain which, in heat of discussion, I have inflicted. 
I go hence unencumbered of the remembrance of any injury 
received, and having discharged the duty of making the only 
reparation in my power for any injury offered. 

Mr. President, and Senators, having made the announce- 
ment which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only re- 
mains for me to bid you a final adieu. 



24. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois.— FIRST IN- 
AUGURAL ADDRESS 

(Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1861.) 

For four months between his election and inauguration 
Lincoln was condemned by the folly of our governmental 
system to inaction, while President Buchanan, "shaken in 
body and uncertain in mind," permitted the Southerners 
freely to perfect their civil and military organization at 
the expense of the F'ederal government. The position taken 
by Buchanan, in his annual message to Congress (Decem- 
ber 3, I860), was neatly summed up by Senator Seward 
as amounting to this: "That no State has a right to secede 
unless it wishes to; and that it is the President's duty to 
enforce the laws unless somebody opposes him." Various 
unsuccessful projects of compromise were mooted, the chief 
of which, put forth by Senator Crittenden of Kentucky, 
off'ered to the South a division of the Territories between 
slavery and freedom, and a repeal of the "personal liberty 
laws" of the Northern States by which the purpose of the 
Fugitive Slave Act was defeated. Lincoln's influence with 
the Republican members of Congress foiled this project. 
North and South alike then awaited with anxious attention 
the announcement in his inaugural address of Lincoln's 
own prescription for the impending crisis. 

This address was prepared at Springfield before Lincoln 
started eastward in February. According to his friend and 
biographer Herndon, Lincoln "locked himself up in a room 
upstairs over a store across the street from the [Illinois] 

370 



First Inaugural 371 

State House;" and amid these dingy surroundings, with the 
Constitution, Henry Clay's speech of 1850, Jackson's proc- 
lamation against nullification, and Webster's reply to Hayne 
at his elbow for reference, he prepared what is now recog- 
nized to be an immortal state-paper. ^lany suggestions 
concerning the inaugural were made by Seward, whom Lin- 
coln had already selected for his Secretary of State, and 
some of those were adopted. Northerners who had expect- 
ed rhetorical embellishments and exaggerated outbursts of 
patriotism were disappointed ; but in the Confederate States 
Lincoln's inaugural was rightly construed to mean war. 
Lincoln's voice had great carrying power, and the address 
was heard with ease by the vast crowd assembled before the 
east front of the Capitol. "At its close the venerable Chief 
Justice Taney administered the oath of office, thereby in- 
formally but eifectually reversing the most famous opinion 
[in the Dred Scott case] delivered by him during his long 
incumbency in his high office." (Morse, Abraham Lincoln, 
I, p. 220.) 



[Abraham Lincoln, at Washington, March i, 1861.] 

FELLOW Citizens of the United States: In com- 
pliance with a custom as old as the government itself, 
I appear before you to address you briefly, and to 
take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitu- 
tion of the LTnited States to be taken by the President be- 
fore he enters on the execution of his office. 

I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to dis- 
cuss those matters of administration about which there is no 
special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist 
among the people of the Southern States that, by the ac- 
cession of a Republican administration, their property and 
their peace and personal security are to be endangered. 
There has never been any reasonable cause for such appre- 



372 



Abraham Lincoln 



hension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary 
has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who 
now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those 
speeches, when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly 
or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in 
the States where it exists." I believe I have no lawful right 
to do so; and I have no inclination to do so. Those who 
nominated and elected me did so with the full knowledge 
that I had made this, and made many similar declarations, 
and have never recanted them. And, more than this, they 
placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to 
themselves and to me, the clear and emjohatic resolution 
which I now read: 

"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights 
of the States, and especially the right of each State to order 
and control its own domestic institutions according to its 
own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of 
power on which the perfection and endurance of our politi- 
cal fabric depend ; and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter 
under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes." 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only 
press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence 
of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, 
and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered 
by the now incoming administration. 

I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with 
the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheer- 
fully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for 
whatever cause; as cheerfully to one section as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up of 
fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as 
plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its pro- 
visions : 

"No person held to service or labor in one State under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- 



First Inaugural 373 

quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended 
by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call 
fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the law-giver is the law. 

All members of Congress swear their support to the whole 
Constitution — to this provision as well as any other. To the 
proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the 
terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are 
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good 
temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame 
and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unani- 
mous oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause 
should be enforced by National or by State authority; but 
surely that difference is not a very material one. If the 
slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence 
to him or to others by which authority it is done ; and should 
any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall go un- 
kept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall 
be kept? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane juris- 
prudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any 
case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at 
the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that 
clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citi- 
zens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States?" 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, 
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by 
any hypercritical rules ; and while I do not choose now to 
specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be en- 
forced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both 
in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by 
all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any 



374 



Abraham Lincoln 



of them, trusting to find impunitA' in having them held to be 
unconstitutional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a 
President under our National Constitution. During that 
period, fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have 
in succession administered the executive branch of the gov- 
ernment. They have conducted it through many perils, and 
generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope for 
precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief 
constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar 
difficulties. 

A disruption of the PVderal Union, heretofore only men- 
aced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that in the con- 
templation of universal law and of the Constitution, the 
union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if 
not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national gov- 
ernments. It is safe to assert that no government proper 
ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termina- 
tion. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 
National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, 
it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not 
provided for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, 
but an association of States in the nature of a contract 
merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less 
than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract 
may violate it — break it, so to speak ; but does it not require 
all to lawfully rescind it? Descending from these general 
principles, we find the proposition that in legal contempla- 
tion the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the 
Union itself. 

The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was 
formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1771. It 
was matured and continued in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all 
the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that 
it should be perpetual, by the Articles of the Confederation, 



First Inaugural 375 

in 1778; and finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects 
for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form 
a more perfect Union. But if the destruction of the Union 
by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, 
the Union is less perfect than before, the Constitution hav- 
ing lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own 
mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union ; that re- 
solves and ordinances to that effect are legally void ; and 
that acts of violence within any State or States against the 
authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revo- 
lutionary, according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that^ in view of the Constitution and 
the laws, the Union is unbroken, and, to the extent of my 
ability^ I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly 
enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faith- 
fully executed in all the States. Doing this, which I deem 
to be only a simple duty on my part, I shall perfectly per- 
form it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, 
the American people, shall withhold the requisition, or in 
some authoritative manner direct the contrary. 

I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as 
the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitution- 
ally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and 
there shall be none unless it is forced upon the National 
authority. 

The power confided to me rvill be used to hold, occupy, 
and possess the property and places belonging to the Gov- 
ernment, and collect the duties and imposts; but beyond 
what may be necessary for these objects there will be no 
invasion, no using of force against or among the people any- 
where. 

Where hostility to the United States shall be so great and 
so universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from 
holding Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force 
obnoxious strangers among the people that object. While 



376 Abraham Lincoln 

strict legal right may exist of the Government to enforce the 
exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so 
irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem 
it best to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished 
in all parts of the Union. 

So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that 
sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm 
thought and reflection. 

The course here indicated will be followed, unless current 
events and experience shall show a modification or change to 
be proper; and in every case and exigency my best discre- 
tion will be exercised according to the circumstances actually 
existing, and with a view and hope of a peaceful solution of 
the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sym- 
pathies and affections. 

That there are persons, in one section or another, who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any 
pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny. But if there 
be such, I need address no word to them. 

To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not 
speak, before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- 
struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories, and its hopes ? Would it not be well to ascertain 
why we do it.^ Will you hazard so desperate a step, while 
any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence.^ 
Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all 
the real ones you fly f rom .^ AVill you risk the commission 
of so fearful a mistake.^ All profess to be content in the 
Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it 
true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitu- 
tion, has been denied.^ I think not. Happily the human 
mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audac- 
ity of doing this. 

Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly- 
written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. 
If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive 



First Inaugural 377 

a minority of any clearly-written constitutional right, it 
might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution; it cer- 
tainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not 
our case. 

All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so 
plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guai*- 
antees and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controver- 
sies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can 
ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to 
every question which may occur in practical administration. 
No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable 
length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. 
Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by National or by 
State authorities.'' The Constitution does not expressly say. 
Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories ? The Con- 
stitution does not expressly say. From questions of this 
class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we 
divide upon them into majorities and minorities. 

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or 
the government must cease. There is no alternative for 
continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side 
or the other. If a minority in such a case will secede rather 
than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will 
ruin and divide them, for a minority of their own will secede 
from them whene^'er a majority refuses to be controlled by 
such a minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a 
new Confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede 
again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim 
to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are 
now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is 
there such perfect identity of interests among the States to 
compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and pre- 
vent renewed secession.^ Plainly, the central idea of seces- 
sion is the essence of anarchy. 

A majority held in restraint by constitutional check and 
limitation, and always changing easily with deliberate 
changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only 



3/8 Abraham Lincoln 

true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does 
of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is 
impossible ; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrange- 
ment, is wholly inadmissible. So that, rejecting the ma- 
jority principle, anarchy or despotism, in some form, is all 
that is left. 

I do not forget the position assumed by some that con- 
stitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, 
nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any 
case upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, 
while they are also entitled to a very high respect and con- 
sideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of 
the government; and while it is obviously possible that such 
decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil 
effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with 
the chance that it may be overruled and never become a pre- 
cedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the 
evils of a different practice. 

At the same time the candid citizen must confess that if 
the policy of the Government ujion the vital question aff"ect- 
ing the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the deci- 
sions of the Sui3reme Court the instant they are made, as 
in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, 
the people will have ceased to be their own masters, unless 
having to that extent practically resigned their government 
into the hands of that eminent tribunal. 

Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or 
the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, 
to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no 
fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to polit- 
ical 2Hirposes. One section of our country believes slavery 
is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it 
is wrong and ought not to be extended; and this is the only 
substantial dispute; and the fugitive slave clause of the Con- 
stitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign 
slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law 
can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the peo- 



First Inaugural 379 

pie imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of 
the people abide by the dry legal obligations in both eases, 
and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be 
perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after 
the separation of the sections than before. The foreign 
slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ulti- 
mately revived, without restriction, in one section; while 
fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not 
be surrendered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we can not separate; we can not 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an 
impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may 
be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the 
reach of each other, but the different parts of our country 
can not do this. They can not but remain face to face ; and 
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue be- 
tween them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse 
more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation 
than before.^ Can aliens make treaties easier than friends 
can make laws.'' Can treaties be more faithfully enforced 
between aliens than laws can among friends ? Suppose you 
go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much 
loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, 
the identical questions as to terms of intercourse are again 
upon you. 

This country, witli its institutions, belongs to the people 
who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the 
existing government, they can exercise their constitutional 
right of amending, or their revolutionary right to dismem- 
ber or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact tliat 
many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having 
the national Constitution amended. While I make no rec- 
ommendation of amendment, I fully recognize the full au- 
thority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised 
in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, 
and I should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather 



380 Abraham Lincoln 

than oppose, a fair opportunity 'being afforded the people 
to act upon it. 

I will venture to add that to me the convention mode 
seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate 
with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them 
to take or reject propositions originated by others not es- 
pecially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be 
precisely such as they would wish either to accept or refuse. 
I understand that a proposed amendment to the Constitu- 
tion (which amendment, however, I have not seen) has 
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government 
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of States^ 
including that of persons held to service. To avoid miscon- 
struction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose 
not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, 
holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional 
law, I have no objection to its being made express and ir- 
revocable. 

The Chief ^Magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix the 
terms for tlie separation of the States. The people them- 
selves, also, can do this if they choose, but the Executive, 
as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer 
the present government as it came to his hands, and to 
transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor. Why should 
there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of 
the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? 
In our present differences is either party without faith of 
being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with 
his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of tlie North, 
or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will 
surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal, the 
American people. By the frame of the government under 
which we live, this same people have wisely given their pub- 
lic servants but little power for mischief, and have with 
equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their 
own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain 



First Inaugural 381 

their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme 
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the govern- 
ment in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon 
this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking 
time. 

If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to 
a step which you would never take deliberately, that object 
will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can 
be frustrated by it. 

Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Con- 
stitution unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of 
your own framing under it; while the new administration 
will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. 

If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the 
right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason for 
precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, 
and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this 
favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, 
all our present difficulties. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not 
in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The govern- 
ment will not assail you. 

You can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to de- 
stroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn 
one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break our bonds of affection. 

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every bat- 
tlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by 
the better angels of our nature. 



25. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, of Georgia.— ON 
THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION 

(Delivered at Savannah, Ga., March 21, 1861.) 

Meanwhile delegates from the seceded States^ assem- 
bled at Montgomery, Ala., had adopted a provisional consti- 
tution, and under it had elected Jefferson Davis President of 
their Confederacy (though his personal preference was for 
the chief command of the Confederate forces), and Alex- 
ander H. Stephens of Georgia Vice-President. On March 
11 a permanent constitution was adopted, which was 
promptly ratified by the different State conventions. 

In an address delivered in Savannah, March 21, Mr. 
Stephens, whom the historian Rhodes calls "the sincerest 
and frankest man in the Southern Confederacy," explained 
at some length the new constitution. From his frank avowal 
that the corner-stone of the new government rests upon 
African slavery, the name "the Corner-stone speech" is often 
given to this address. The speech (which is here given) 
was impromjDtu, and is said to have been very imperfectly 
reported. 

In spite of ill health and slight stature (he seldom 
weighed more than ninety pounds) Stephens was a great 

Alexander H. Stephens. Born in Georgia, 1812: graduated from Franklin 
College (Georgia State University), 1832; admitted to bar, 1834; elected to the 
legislature, 1836, as an opponent of nullification; in Congress, 1843-59: seriously 
wounded and health permanently wrecked in a knife duel, 1848: supported 
Douglas for Presidency, 1860: Vice President of Southern Confederacy, 1861-65; 
elected to the Senate from Georgia after the war, but not allowed to take his 
seat: author of "The War Between the States," 1867-70; in Congress, 1874-82: 
elected Governor of Georgia, 1882: died, 1883. 

.'382 



The Confederate Constitution 383 

orator and a fearless statesman. In a memorable speech 
before the Georgia legislature^ following the news of Lin- 
coln's election, he had opposed the secession movement 
which Toombs, Cobb, and other influential Georgians urged 
on; and again in the State convention in January, 1861, 
he repeated his arguments. "1 liave been and am* still," he 
said, "opposed to secession as a remedy against anticipated 
aggressions on the part of the Federal Executive or Con- 
gress. I have held, and do now hold, that the point of re- 
sistance should be the point of aggression. ... I 
feel confident, if Georgia would now stand firm, 
and unite with the Border States . . . in an effort to 
obtain a redress of these grievances on the part of some 
of their Northern confederates, whereof they have such 
just cause to complain, that complete success would attend 
their efforts. . . . [Nevertheless] if a majority of the 
delegates in this convention shall, by their votes, dissolve 
the comj^act of Union ... I shall bow in submission 
to that decision." (Stephens, War between the States, p. 
305-6.) 



[Alexander H. Stephens, at Atlanta, Ga., March 21, 1861.] 

MR. Mayor and Gentlemen of the Committee, 
AND Fellow Citizens: . . . We are in the 
midst of one of the greatest eijochs in our history. 
The last ninety days will mark one of the most memorable 
eras in the history of modern civilization. . . . Seven 
States have, within the last three months, thrown off an 
old government, and formed a new. This revolution has 
been signally marked, up to this time, by the fact of its 
having been accomplished without loss of a single drop of 
blood. This new constitution, or form of government, con- 
stitutes the subject to which your attention will be partly 
invited. 



384 Alexander H. Stephens 

Taking the whole of the new constitution, I have no hesi- 
tancy in giving it as my judgment that it is decidedly better 
than the old. Allow me briefly to allude to some of these 
improvements. . . . We allow the imposition of no 
duty with a view of giving advantages to one class of per- 
sons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, 
under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of 
perfect equality. 

This old thorn of the tariff', which was the cause of so 
much irritation in the old body politic, is removed forever 
from the new. 

Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the 
power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest un- 
der our system. The power claimed by construction, under 
the old Constitution, was at least a doubtful one — it rested 
solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart 
from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its 
exercise upon grounds of expediency and justice. 
Our opposition sprung from no hostility to commerce or all 
necessary aids for facilitating it. . . . No State was 
in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we had 
not asked that those works should be made by appropria- 
tions out of the common treasury. 

The true principle is, to subject the commerce of every 
locality to whatever burdens maj' be necessary to facilitate 
it. If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the com- 
merce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the 
Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navi- 
gation which is benefited by it bear the burden. So with the 
mouths of the Alabama and Mississippi rivers. Just as the 
products of the interior — our cotton, wheat, corn, and other 
articles — have to bear the necessary rates of freight over 
our railroads to reach the seas. This is again the broad 
principle of perfect equality and justice. And it is spe- 
cially held forth and established in our new constitution. 

Another feature to which I will allude is, that the new 
constitution provides that cabinet ministers and heads of 



The Confederate Constitution 385 

departments shall have the privilege of seats upon the floor 
of the Senate and House of Representatives, — shall have 
the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon 
the various subjects of administration. I should have pre- 
ferred that this provision should have gone further, and 
allowed the President to select his constitutional advisers 
from the Senate and House of Representatives. That would 
have conformed entirely to the practice in the British Par- 
liament, which in my judgment is one of the wisest provi- 
sions in the British constitution. It is that which gives 
it stability, in its facility to change its administration. 
Ours, as it is, is a great approximation to the right prin- 
ciple. . . . 

Another change in the constitution relates to the length 
of the tenure of the presidential office. In the new consti- 
tution it is six years instead of four, and the President is 
rendered ineligible for re-election. This is certainly a de- 
cidedly conservative change. It will remove from the in- 
cumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers 
confided to him for any objects of personal ambition. The 
only incentive to that higher ambition which should move 
and actuate one holding such high trusts in his hands, will 
be the good of the joeople, the advancement, prosperity, hap- 
piness, safety, honor, and true glory of the Confederacy. 

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous 
changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — 
though last, not least: The new constitution has put to rest, 
forever, all agitating questions relating to our peculiar in- 
stitution, African slavery as it exists among us, — the proper 
status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was 
the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolu- 
tion. Jeff'erson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the 
"rock upon which the old Union would split." He was 
right. What was conjecture with him is now a realized fact. 
But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon 
which that rock stood and stands may be .doubted. The pre- 
vailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading 



386 Alexander H. Stephens 

statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitu- 
tion were that the enslavement of the African was in viola- 
tion of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, 
socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew 
not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the 
men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order of 
Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass 
away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitu- 
tion, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, 
it is true, secured every essential guaranty to the institution 
while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly 
used against the constitutional guaranties thus secured, be- 
cause of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, 
however, were fundamentally Avrong. They rested upon 
the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. 
It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of the government 
built upon it; when the "storm came and the wind blew, it 
fell." 

Our new government is founded upon exactly the oppo- 
site idea ; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, 
upon tlie great truth that the negro is not equal to the white 
man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is 
his natural and normal condition. 

This, our new government, is the first in the history of 
the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and 
moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its 
development, like all other truths in the various depart- 
ments of science. It has been so even among us. Many 
\vho hear me perhaps can recollect well that this truth was 
not generally admitted even within their day. The errors 
of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty 
years ago. Those at the North who still cling to these er- 
rors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate 
fanatics. 

All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind, 
from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. 
One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many 



The Confederate Constitution 387 

instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or 
erroneous premises. So with the anti-slavery fanatics: 
their conclusions are right, if their premises are. They as- 
sume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he 
is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white 
man. If their premise were correct, their conclusion would 
be logical and just; but, their premise being wrong, their 
whole argument fails. I recollect once having heard a gen- 
tleman from one of the Northern States, of great power and 
ability, announce in the House of Representatives^ with im- 
posing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, 
ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery; that it 
was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in 
politics as it was in physics or mechanics ; that the prin- 
ciple would ultimately prevail ; that we, in maintaining slav- 
ery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, 
a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality 
of man. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own 
grounds we should succeed, and that he and his associates 
in their crusades against our institutions would ultimately 
fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to 
war successfully against a principle in politics as in physics 
and mechanics, I admitted, but told him that it was he and 
those acting with him who were warring against a prin- 
ciple. They were attempting to make things equal which 
the Creator had made unequal. 

In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, 
complete throughout the length and breadth of the Con- 
federate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social 
fabric is firmly planted, and I can not permit myself to 
doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this 
principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world. 

As I have stated, the trutli of this principle may be slow 
in development, as all truths are and ever have been in the 
various branches of science. It was so with the principles 
announced by Galileo ; it was so with Adam Smith and his 
principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey and 



388 Alexander H. Stephens 

his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that 
not a single one of the medical profession, living at the 
time of the announcement of the truths made by him, ad- 
mitted them. Now they are universally acknowledged. 
May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate 
universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our 
system rests .^ It is the first government ever instituted 
upon principles in strict conformity to nature and the ordi- 
nation of Providence in furnishing the materials of human 
society. 

^lany governments have been founded upon the principle 
of the enslavement of certain classes ; but the classes thus 
enslaved were of the same race, and in violation of the laws 
of nature. Our system commits no such violation of na- 
ture's laws. The negro by nature, or by the curse against 
Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in 
our system. The architect, in the construction of build- 
ings, lays the foundation with proper materials — the gran- 
ite, then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum 
of oin* society is made of the material fitted by nature for 
it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for 
the superior but for the inferior race, that it should be so. 
It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Cre- 
ator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of his or- 
dinances or to question them. For his own purposes he has 
made one race to differ from another, as he has made "one 
star to differ from another in glory." 

The great objects of humanity are best attained when 
conformed to his laws and decrees, in the formation of 
governments as well as in all things else. Our Confed- 
eracy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with 
these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first 
builders "is become the chief stone of the corner" in our 
new edifice. 

I have been asked, what of the future.^ It has been ap- 
prehended by some that we would have arrayed against us 
the civilized world. . . . Some have propounded the 



The Confederate Constitution 389 

inquiry whether it is practicable for us to go on with the 
Confederacy without further accessions? Have we the 
means and ability to maintain nationality among the Pow- 
ers of the earth? On this point I would barely say that as 
anxiously as we all have been and are for the Border States, 
with institutions similar with ours, to join us, still we are 
abundantly able to maintain our position even if they should 
ultimately make up their minds not to cast their destiny 
with ours. That they ultimately M^ill join us — be compelled 
to do it — is my confident belief, but we can get on very well 
without them, even if they should not. 

Will everj'^thing, commenced so well, continue as it has 
begun? In reply to this anxious inquiry I can only say 
it all depends upon ourselves. . . . We are a young 
republic just entering upon the arena of nations; we will 
be the architect of our own fortunes. Our destinv, under 
Providence, is in our own hands. With wisdom, prudence, 
and statesmanship on the part of our public men, and in- 
telligence, virtue, and patriotism on the part of the people, 
success, to the full measures of our most sanguine hopes, 
may be looked for. But if we become divided; if schisms 
arise ; if dissensions spring up ; if factions are engendered ; 
if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambition, shall 
rear its hydra head, — I have no good to prophesy for you. 
W^ithout intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on the 
part of the jieople, no republic or representative government 
can be durable or stable. 

Our growth by accessions from other States will depend 
greatly upon whether we present to the world, as I trust we 
shall, a better government than that to which they belong. 
If we do this. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas can 
not hesitate long; neither can Virginia, Kentucky, and ]\Iis- 
souri. They will necessarily gravitate to us by an imperious 
law. We made ample provision in our constitution for the 
admission of other States ; it is more guarded — and wisely 
so, I think — than the old Constitution on the same subject, 
but not too guarded to receive them as fast as it may be 



390 Alexander H. Stephens 

proper. Looking to the distant future, and perhaps not 
very distant either^ it is not beyond the range of possibility 
and even probability that all the great States of the North- 
west shall gravitate this way, as well as Tennessee^ Ken- 
tucky, Missouri, Arkansas, etc. Should they do so our 
doors are wide enough to receive them, but not until they 
are ready to assimilate with us in principle. 

The process of disintegration in the old Union may be 
expected to go on with almost absolute certainty. We are 
now the nucleus of a growing power which, if we are true 
to ourselves, our destiny, and high mission, will become the 
controlling power on this continent. To what extent ac- 
cession will go on in the process of time, or where it will 
end, the future will determine. So far as it concerns States 
of the old Union, they will be upon no such principle of 
reconstruction as now spoken of, but upon reorganization 
and new assimilation. Such are some of the glimpses of the 
future as I catch them. 

But at first we must necessarih' meet with the inconveni- 
ences and difficulties and embarrassments incident to all 
changes of government. These will be felt in our postal 
affairs and changes in the channel of trade. These incon- 
veniences, it is to be hoped. Mill be but temporary, and 
must be borne with patience and forbearance. 

As to whether we shall have war with our late confeder- 
ates, or whether all matters of differences between us shall 
be amicabh" settled, I can only say that the prospect for a 
peaceful adjustment is better, so far as I am informed, than 
it has been. 

The prospect of war is at least not so threatening as it 
has been. The' idea of coercion shadowed forth in President 
Lincoln's inaugural seems not to be followed up, thus far, so 
vigorously as was expected. Fort Sumter, it is believed, will 
soon be evacuated. What course will be pursued toward 
Fort Pickens and the other forts on the Gulf is not well 
understood. It is to be greatly desired that all of them 
should be surrendered. Our object is Peace, not only with 



The Confederate Constitution 391 

the North, but with the world. All matters relating to the 
public property, public liabilities of the Union when we 
were members of it, we are ready and willing to adjust and 
settle upon the principles of right, equality, and good faith. 
War can be of no more benefit to the North than to us. 
The idea of coercing us or subjugating us is utterly pre- 
posterous. 

Whether the intention of evacuating Fort Sumter is to be 
received as an evidence of a desire for a peaceful solution 
of our difficulties with the United States, or the result of 
necessity, I will not undertake to say. I would fain hope 
the former. Rumors are afloat, however, that it is the re- 
sult of necessity. All I can say to you, therefore, on that 
point is, keep your armor bright and your powder dry. 

The surest way to secure peace is to show your ability to 
maintain your rights. The principles and position of the 
present administration of the United States — the Republican 
party — present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed 
principle with them never to allow the increase of a foot 
of slave territory, they seem to be equally determined not 
to part with an inch "of the accursed soil." Notwithstand- 
ing their clamor against the institution, they seem to be 
equally ojDposed to getting more or letting go what they 
have got. They were ready to fight on the accession of 
Texas, and are equally ready to fight now on her secession. 
Why is this? How can this strange paradox be accounted 
for? There seems to be but one rational solution, and that 
is, notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are 
disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave 
labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The 
idea of enforcing the laws has but one object, and that is 
a collection of the taxes raised by slave labor to swell the 
fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The 
spoils is what they are after, though they come from the 
labor of the slave. 



26. HENRY WARD I3EECHER. of Brooklyn, N. Y.— 
ADDRESS AT LIVERPOOL 

(Delivered at Liverpool, Eng., October 16, 1863.) 

The attitude which Great Britain should assume toward 
the war between the States was a matter of vital concern to 
the North; and it was with undue anger (as we now see) that 
it was learned that her attitude, so far as concerns the Brit- 
ish Government, was not especially friendly. We complained 
of the haste with which belligerent rights were granted 
to the Confederacy ; of the sympathy openly extended to 
the South by the English upper classes ; and of the slack 
enforcement of British neutrality laws, which permitted 
the escape of the Confederate cruiser Alabama and other 
English-built vessels to prey upon Northern commerce. 
On the other hand, our unwarranted seizure of the Confed- 
erate onvoys. Mason and Slidell, from the British mail 
steamer Trent, provoked an outburst of warlike energy on 
the part of the British government, which made their sur- 
render very galling to American pride. Lowell, the laure- 
ate of Anti-Slavery, well caught the prevalent Northern 
sentiment in the following epistle from "Jonathan to John," 
in his Biglorv Papers (1862) : 

Henry Ward Beecher. Born in Connecticut, 1S13; graduated from Amlierst 
College, 1834; from Lane Theological Seminary, 18;?7; Presbyterian minister in 
Lawrenceburg, Ind., 1S37-39: in Indianapolis, 1839-t7: pastor of riymouth Con- 
gregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1847-87: Republican campaign speaker, 
1856, and 1860; supported Cleveland in 1884; died, 1887. 



392 



Liverpool Address 393 



It don't seem hardly right, John, 

When both my hands was full, 
To stump me to a fight, John, — 

Your cousin, tu, John Bull! 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
We know it now" sez he, 
"The lion's paw is all the law, 
Accordin' to J. B., 
Thet's fit for you an' me ! " 

You wonder why we're hot, John? 
Your mark wuz on the guns, 
The neutral guns, thet shot, John, 
Our brothers an' our sons: 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
There's human blood," sez he, 
"By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts. 
Though 't may surprise J. B. 
More'n it would you an' me ! " 
******** 

Wegive the critters [Mason and Shdell] back, John, 

Cos Abram thought 't was right ; 
It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, 
Provokin' us to fight. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
We've a hard row," sez he, 
" To hoe jest now ; but thet somehow 
May happen to J. B. 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

The series of speeches delivered at different places in 
Great Britain, in 1863, by Henry Ward Beecher, then 
traveling in Europe for his health, did much to promote a 
better understanding of the Northern cause among the 
British people. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "Mr. 
Beecher made a single speech in Great Britain, but it was 
delivered piecemeal in different places. Its exordium was 
uttered on the ninth of October at JNIanchester, and its pero- 
ration was pronounced on the twentieth of the same month 



394 Henry Ward Beecher 

in Exeter Hall [London]." As the son of Dr. Lyman 
Beecher and the brother of the author of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, no less than for his fearless eloquence, Mr. Beecher 
gained the ear of the British public; and "through the 
heart of the people," in the words of Mr. Holmes, "he 
reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, the throne itself." 

The most difficult audience that he had to face was at 
Liverpool, where special efforts were made to stir up the 
populace against him. Placards were posted stating that 
he had "recommended London to be sacked and this town 
destroyed ' because of the Trent affair; and one set ended 
with the ominous words: "Let Englishmen see that he gets 
the welcome he deserves." After his return to America 
Mr. Beecher gave the following general description of the 
turbulence of English public meetings: "No American that 
has not seen an English mob can form any conception of 
one. I have seen all sorts of camp-meetings and experi- 
enced all kinds of public speaking on the stump; I have 
seen the most disturbed meetings in New York City; and 
they Avere all of them as twilight to midnight compared to 
an English hostile audience. For in England the meeting 
does not belong to the parties that call it, but to whoever 
chooses to go, and if they can take it out of your hands it 
is considered fair play." Of the meeting at Liverpool in 
particular, he said: "Of all confusions and turmoils and 
whirls, I never saw the like. I got control of the meeting 
in about an hour and a half, and then I had a clear road 
the rest of the way. We carried the meeting, but it re- 
quired a three hours' use of my voice at its utmost strength. 
I sometimes felt like a shipmaster attempting to preach on 
board of a ship through a speaking trumpet, with a tor- 
nado on the sea and a mutiny among the men." (See 
Beecher, Patriotic Addresses, pp. 548, 643, 647, 652.) 



Liverpool Address 395 

[Henry Ward Beecher, at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, Eng., 
October 16, 1863.] 

FOR MORE than twenty-five years I have been made per- 
fectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of 
my country except the extreme South. There has 
not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life 
when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason 
and Dixon's line in my own country, and all for one reason : 
my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that 
which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under the 
sun — the system of American slavery in a great free repub- 
lic. [Cheers.] I have passed through that early period 
when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and 
again I have attempted to address audiences that, for no 
other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all 
manner of contumelious epithets ; and now since I have been 
in England, although I have met with greater kindness and 
courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the 
other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails 
to some extent in England. [Applause and uproar.] It is 
my old acquaintance; I understand it perfectly [laughter], 
and I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that 
where a man had a cause that would bear examination he 
was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. [Applause.] 
And when in ^Manchester I saw those huge placards: "Who 
is Henry Ward Beecher.''" [laughter, cries of "Quite right," 
and applause] — and when in Liverpool I was told that there 
were those blood-red placards, purporting to say what 
Henry Ward Beecher had said, and calling upon English- 
men to suppress free speech — I tell you what I thought. I 
thought simply this : "I am glad of it." [Laughter.] Why? 
Because if they had felt perfectly secure that you are the 
minions of the South and the slaves of slavery, they would 
have been perfectly still. [Applause and uproar.] And, 
therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, 
if I were permitted to speak [hisses and applause] — when 
I found they were afraid to have me speak [hisses, laugh- 



39^ Henry Ward Beecher 

ter, and "No, no!"^ — when I found that they considered 
my speaking damaging to their cause \^applause^ — when I 
found that they appealed from facts and reasonings to 
mob law [applause and uproar] — I said. No man need tell 
me what the heart and secret counsel of these men are. 
They tremble and are afraid. [Applause, laughter, hisses, 
"No, no!" and a- voice: "New Yo?k mob."] Now, per- 
sonally, it is a matter of very little consequence to me 
whether I speak here to-night or not. [Laughter and 
cheers.] But, one thing is very certain, if you do permit 
me to speak here to-night you will hear very plain talking. 
[Applause and hisses.] You will not find a man [interrup- 
tion] — you will not find me to be a man that dared to 
speak about Great Britain 3,000 miles off, and then is 
afraid to speak to Great Britain when he stands on her 
shores, [hnmense applause and hisses.] And if I do not 
mistake the tone and temper of Englishmen, they had 
rather have a man who opposes them in a manly way [ap- 
plause from all parts of the hall] than a sneak that agrees 
with them in an unmanly way. [Applause and "Bravo!"] 
Now, if I can carry you with me by sound convictions, I 
shall be immensely glad [applause] ; but if I can not carry 
you with me by facts and sound arguments, I do not wish 
you to go with me at all; and all that I ask is simply fair 
plaij, [Applause, and a voice: "You shall have it, too."] 
Those of you who are kind enough to wish to favor my 
speaking — and you will observe that my voice is slightly 
husky, from having spoken almost every night in succes- 
sion for some time past — those who wish to liear me will 
do me the kindness simply to sit still, and to keep still; 
and I and my friends the Secessionists will make all the 
noise. [Laughter.] 

There are two dominant races in modern -history — the 
Germanic and the Romanic races. The Germanic races 
tend to personal liberty, to a sturdy individualism, to civil 
and to j^olitical liberty. The Romanic race tends to abso- 
lutism in government; it is clannish; it loves chieftains; it 



Liverpool Address 397 

develops a people that crave strong and showy governments 
to support and plan for them. The Anglo-Saxon race be- 
longs to the great German family, and is a fair exponent 
of its peculiarities. The Anglo-Saxon carries self-govern- 
ment and self-development Avith him wherever he goes. 
He has popular government and popular industry; for the 
effects of a generous civil liberty are not seen a whit more 
plain in the good order, in the intelligence, and in the 
virtue of a self-governing people, than in their amazing 
enterprise and the scope and power of their creative in- 
dustry. The power to create riches is just as much a part 
of the Anglo-Saxon virtues as the power to create good 
order and social safety. The things required for pros- 
perous labor, prosperous manufactures, and prosperous 
commerce are three: First, liberty; second, liberty; third, 
liberty. IHear, hear!] Though these are not merely the 
same liberty, as I shall show you. First, there must be 
liberty to follow those laws of business which experience 
has developed, without imposts or restrictions, or govern- 
mental intrusions. Business simply wants to be let alone. 
[Hear, hear!] Then, secondly, there must be liberty to 
distribute and exchange products of industry in any mar- 
ket without burdensome tariffs, without imposts, and with- 
out vexatious regulations. There must be these two liber- 
ties — liberty to create wealth as the makers of it think 
best, according to the light and experience which business 
has given them; and then liberty to distribute what they 
have created without unnecessary vexatious burdens. The 
comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the 
world is free manufacture and free trade. [Hear, hear! A 
voice: "The Morrill tariff." Another voice: "Monroe."] 
I have said there were three elements of liberty. The third 
is the necessity of an intelligent and free race of cus- 
tomers. There must be freedom among producers ; there 
must be freedom among the distributors; there must be 
freedom among the customers. It may not have occurred 
to you that it makes any difference what one's customers 



398 Henry Ward Beecher 

are, but it does in all regular and prolonged business. The 
condition of the customer determines how much he will 
buy, determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and ig- 
norant people buy little and that of the poorest kind. The 
richest and the intelligent, having the more means to buy, 
buy the most, and always bu}' the best. Here, then, are 
the three liberties : liberty of the producer, liberty of the 
distributor, and liberty of the consumer. The first two 
need no discussion ; they have been long thoroughly and 
brilliantly illustrated by the political economists of Great 
Britain and by her eminent statesmen : but it seems to me 
that enough attention has not been directed to the third; 
and, with your patience, I will dwell upon that for a mo- 
ment, before proceeding to other topics. 

It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial 
people that their customers should be very wealthy and in- 
telligent. Let us put the subject before you in the familiar 
light of your own local experience. To whom do the trades- 
men of Liverpool sell the most goods at the highest profit? 
To the ignorant and poor, or to the educated and prosper- 
ous.^ [A voice: "To the Southerners." Laughter.] The 
poor man buys simply for his body; he buys food, he buys 
clothing, he buys fuel, he buys lodging. His rule is to 
buy the least and the cheapest that he can. He goes to 
the store as seldom as he can; he brings away as little as 
he can; and he buys for the least he can. [Much laugh- 
ter.] Poverty is not a misfortune to the poor only who 
suffer it, but it is more or less a misfortune to all with 
whom he deals. On the other hand, a man well off — how 
is it with him.^ He buys in far greater quantity. He can 
afford to do it; he has the money to pay for it. He buys 
in far greater variety, because he seeks to gratify not merely 
physical wants, but also mental wants. He buys for the 
satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense. He 
buys silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals — iron, sil- 
ver, gold, platinum; in short, he buys for all necessities 
and all substances. But that is not all. He buvs a better 



Liverpool Address 399 

quality of goods. He buys richer silks, finer cottons, higher 
grained wools. Now, a rich silk means so much skill and 
care of somebody's that has been expended upon it to make 
it finer and richer; and so of cotton and so of wool. That 
is, the price of the finer goods runs back to the very begin- 
ning, and remunerates the workman as well as the merchant. 
Indeed, the whole laboring community is as much interested 
and profited as the mere merchant, in this buying and sell- 
ing of the higher grades in the greater varieties and quanti- 
ties. The law of price is the skill; and the amount of skill 
expended in the work is as much for the market as are the 
goods. A man comes to the market and says: "I have a 
pair of handS;," and he obtains the lowest wages. Another 
man comes and says, "I have something more than a pair 
of hands; I have truth and fidelity;" he gets the higher 
price. Another man comes and says, "I have something 
more; I have hands, and strength, and fidelity, and skill." 
He gets more than either of the others. The next man 
comes and says: "I have got hands, and strength, and skill, 
and fidelity ; but my hands work more than that. They 
know how to create things for the fancy, for the affections, 
for the moral sentiments;" and he gets more than any of 
the others. The last man comes and says: "I have all these 
qualities, and have them so highly that it is a peculiar 
genius;" and genius carries the whole market and gets the 
highest price. [Loud applause.^ So that both the work- 
man and the merchant are profited by having purchasers 
that demand quality, variety, and quantity. Now, if this 
be so in the town or the city, it can only be so because it 
is a law. This is the specific development of a general or 
universal law, and therefore we should expect to find it as 
true of a nation as of a city like Liverpool. I know that 
it is so, and you know that it is true of all the world; and 
it is just as important to have customers educated, intelli- 
gent, moral, and rich out of Liverpool as it is in Liverpool. 
[Applause.^ They are able to buy; they want variety; they 
want the verv best; and those are the customers vou want. 



400 Henry Ward Beecher 

That nation is the best customer that is freest, because free- 
dom works prosperity, industry, and wealth. Great Britain, 
then, aside from moral considerations, has a direct commer- 
cial and pecuniary interest in the liberty, civilization, and 
wealth of every nation on the globe. [Loud applause.] 
You also have an interest in this, because you are a moral 
and religious people. ["Oh, oh!" laughtei- and applause.] 
You desire it from the highest motives ; and godliness is 
profitable in all things, having the promise of the life that 
now is, as well as of that which is to come: but if there 
were no hereafter, and if man had no progress in this life, 
and if there were no question of civilization at all. it would 
be Avorth your while to protect civilization and liberty, 
merely as a commercial speculation. To evangelize has 
more than a moral and religious import — it comes back to 
temporal relations. Wherever a nation that is crushed, 
cramped, degraded under despotism, is struggling to be 
free, you, Leeds, Sheffield, JNIanchester, Paisley, all have 
an interest that that nation should be free. When depressed 
and backward people demand that they may have a chance 
to rise — Hungary, Italy, Poland — it is a duty for human- 
ity's sake, it is a duty for the highest moral motives, to 
sympathize with them ; but besides all these there is a mate- 
rial and an interested reason why you should sympathize 
with them. Pounds and pence join with conscience and 
with honor in this design. 

Now, Great Britain's chief want is — what? They have 
said that your chief want is cotton. I deny it. Your chief 
want is consumers. [Applause and hisses.] You have got 
skill, you have got capital, and you have got machinery 
enough to manufacture goods for the whole population of 
the globe. You could turn out fourfold as much as you 
do, if you only had the market to sell in. It is not. there- 
fore, so much the want of fabric, though there may be a 
temporary obstruction of that ; but the principal and in- 
creasing want — increasing from year to year — is, where 
shall we find men to buv what we can manufacture so fast? 



Liverpool Address 401 

[^Interruption, and a voice, "The Morrill tariff," and ap- 
plause.^ Before the American war broke out your ware- 
houses were loaded with goods that you could not sell. 
[Applause and hisses.] You had over-manufactured; what 
is the meaning of over-manufacturing but this : that you 
had skill, capital, machinery, to create faster than you had 
customers to take goods off your hands? And you know 
that, rich as Great Britain is, vast as are her manufactures, 
if she could have fourfold the present demand, she could 
make fourfold riches to-morrow ; and every political econo- 
mist will tell you that your want is not cotton primarily, 
but customers. Therefore, the doctrine. How to make cus- 
tomers, is a great deal more important to Great Britain 
than the doctrine, How to raise cotton. It is to that doctrine 
I ask you, business men, practical men, men of fact, saga- 
cious Englishmen — to that point I ask a moment's atten- 
tion. [SJiOuts of "Oh, oh!" hisses, and applause.] 

There are no more continents to be discovered. [Hear, 
hear!] The market of the future must be found — how.'* 
There is very little hope of any more demand being created 
by new fields. If you are to have a better market, there 
must be some kind of process invented to make the old 
fields better. [A voice, "Tell us something new," sJiouts 
of "Order," and interruption.] Let us look at it, then. 
You must civilize the world in order to make a better class 
of purchasers. [Interruption.] If you were to press Italy 
down again under the feet of despotism, Italy discouraged 
could draw but very few supplies from you. But give her 
liberty, kindle schools throughout her valleys, spur her in- 
dustry, make treaties with her by which she can exchange 
her wine and her oil and her silk for your manufactured 
goods; and for every effort that you make in that direction 
there will come back profit to you by increased traffic with 
her. [Loud applause.] If Hungary asks to be an un- 
shackled nation — if by freedom she will rise in virtue and 
intelligence, then by freedom she will acquire a more multi- 
farious industry, which she will be willing to exchange for 



402 Henry Ward Beecher 

your manufactures. Her liberty is to be found — where? 
You will find it in the Word of God, you will find it in the 
code of history; but you will also find it in the Price Cur- 
rent [hear, hear!^ ; and every free nation, everj^ civilized 
people — every people that rises from barbarism to indus- 
try and intelligence, — becomes a better customer. 

A savage is a man of one story, and that one story a cel- 
lar. When man begins to be civilized, he raises another 
story. When you Christianize and civilize the man, you 
put story upon story, for you develop faculty after faculty ; 
and you have to supply every story with your productions. 
The savage is a man one story deep ; the civilized man is 
thirty stories deep. [Applause.] Now, if you go to a lodg- 
ing-house, where there are three or four men, your sales 
to them may, no doubt, be worth something; but if you go 
to a lodging-house like some of those which I saw in Edin- 
burgh, which seemed to contain about twenty stories ["Oh, 
oh!" and interruption], every story of which is full, and 
all who occupy buy of you — which is the better customer, 
the man who is drawn out, or the man who is pinched up ? 
[Laughter.] 

There is in this a great and sound principle of economy. 
["Yah, yah!" from the passage outside the hall, and loud 
laughter.] If the South sliould be rendered independent — 
[at this juncture mingled cheering and hisses became im- 
mense; half the audience rose to their feet, waving hats and 
handkerchiefs, and in every part of the hall there was the 
greatest commotion and uproar.] Well, you have had your 
turn now; now let nie have mine again. [Loud applause 
and laughter.] It is a little inconvenient to talk against 
the wind; but after all, if you will just keep good-natured 
— I am not going to lose my temper ; will you watch yours ? 
[Applause.] Besides all that, it rests me, and gives me a 
chance, you know, to get my breath. [Applause and 
hisses.] And I think that the bark of those men is worse 
than their bite. They do not mean any harm — they don't 
know any better. [Loud laughter, applause, hisses, and 



Liverpool Address 403 

continued uproar.] I was saying, when these responses 
broke in, that it was worth our while to consider both alter- 
natives. What will be the result if this present struggle 
shall eventuate in the separation of America, and making 
the South — [loud applause, hisses, hooting and cries of 
"Bravo!"] — a slave territory exclusively — [cries of "No, 
no!" and laughter] — and the North a free territory; what 
will be the final result? You will lay the foundation for 
carrying the slave population clear through to the Pacific 
Ocean. This is the first step. There is not a man who has 
been a leader of the South any time within these twenty 
years, that has not had this for a plan. It was for this that 
Texas was invaded, first by colonists, next by marauders, 
until it was wrested from Mexico. It was for this that they 
engaged in the Mexican War itself, by which the vast ter- 
ritory reaching to the Pacific was added to the Union. 
Never for a moment have they given up the plan of spread- 
ing the American institution, as they call it, straight through 
toward the West, until the slave, who has washed his feet 
in the Atlantic, shall be carried to wash them in the Pacific. 
[Cries of "Question," and uproar.] There! I have got 
that statement out, and you can not put it back. [Laughter 
and applause.] 

Now, let us consider the prospect. If the South be- 
comes a slave empire, what relation will it have to you as a 
customer? [A voice: "Or any other man." Laughter.] 
It would be an empire of twelve millions of people. Now, 
of these, eight million are white, and four million are black. 
[A voice: "How many have you got?" Applause and laugh- 
ter. Another voice: "Free your own slaves."] Consider 
that one-third of the whole are the miserably poor, unbuy- 
ing blacks. [Cries of "No, no!" "Yes, yes!" and inter- 
ruption.] You do not manufacture mucli for them. [Hisses, 
"Oh!" "No."] You have not got machinery coarse enough. 
[Laughter, and "No."] Your labor is too skilled by far to 
manufacture bagging and linsey-woolsey. [A Southerner: 
"We are going to free them, every one."] Then you and 



404 Henry Ward Beecher 

I agree exactly. [Laughter.^ One other third consists of 
a poor, unskilled, degraded white population; and the re- 
maining one-third, which is a large allowance, we will say, 
intelligent and rich. Now here are twelve million of peo- 
ple, and only one-third of them are customers that can af- 
ford to buy the kind of goods that you bring to market. 
[Interruption and iiproar.] My friends, I saw a man 
once, who was a little late at a railway station, chase an 
express train. He did not catch it. [Laughter.] If you are 
going to stop this meeting, you have got to stop it before 
I speak; for after I have got the things out, you may chase 
as long as you please — you will not catch them. [Laughter 
and interruption.] But there is luck in leisure; I'm going 
to take it easy. [Laughter.] Two-thirds of the population 
of the Southern States to-day are non-purchasers of Eng- 
lish goods. [A voice: "No, they are not;" "No, no!" and 
uproar.] Now you must recollect another fact — namely, 
that this is going on clear through to the Pacific Ocean ; 
and if by sympathy or help you establish a slave empire, 
you sagacious Britons — ["Oh, oh!" and hooting] — if you 
like it better, then, I will leave the adjective out — [Laugh- 
ter, Hear! and applause] — are busy in favoring the estab- 
lishment of an empire from ocean to ocean that should have 
fewest customers and the largest non-buying population. 
[Applause, "No, no!" A voice: "I thought it was the happy 
people that populated fastest."] 

Now, what can England make for the poor 
white population of such a future empire, and for her slave 
population? What carpets, what linens, what cottons can 
you sell them? What machines, what looking-glasses, what 
combs, what leather, what books, what pictures, what en- 
gravings? [A voice: "JVe'll sell them ships."] You may 
sell ships to a few, but what ships can you sell to two- 
thirds of the population of poor whites and blacks? [Ap- 
plause.] A little bagging and a little linsey-woolsey, a 
few whips and manacles, are all that you can sell for the 
slave. [Great applause and uproar.] This very day, in 



Liverpool Address 405 

the slave States of America there are eight millions out of 
twelve millions that are not and can not be your customers 
from the very laws of trade. [A voice: "Then how are 
they clothed?" and intei-ruption.] 

Now, it is said that if the South should be al- 
lowed to be separate there will be no tariff, and England 
can trade with her; but if the South remains in the United 
States it will be bound by a tariff, and English goods will 
be excluded from it. [Intei-niption.] Well, I am not going 
to shirk any question of that kind. . . . There has not 
been for the whole of the fifty years a single hour when 
any tariff could be passed without the South. The opinion 
of the whole of America was. Tariff, high tariff. I do not 
mean that there were none that dissented from that opin- 
ion, but it was the popular and prevalent cry. I have lived 
to see the time when, just before the war broke out, it 
might be said that the thinking men of America were ready 
for free-trade. There has been a steady progress through- 
out America for free-trade ideas. 

How, then, came this Morrill tariff? The Democratic 
administration, inspired by Southern counsels, left millions 
of millions of unpaid debt to cramp the incoming of Lin- 
coln; and the government, betrayed by the Southern States, 
found itself unable to pay those debts, unable to build a 
single ship, unable to raise an army ; and it was the exi- 
gency, the necessity, that forced them to adopt the Morrill 
tariff, in order to raise the money which they required. It 
was the South that obliged the North to put the tariff on. 
[Applause and uproar.] Just as soon as we begin to have 
peace again, and can get our national debt into a proper 
shape as you have got yours — [laughtei-] — the same cause 
that worked before will begin to work again; and there is 
nothing more certain in the future than that America is 
bound to join with Great Britain in the world-wide doc- 
trine of free-trade. [Applause and interruption.] 

But I know that you say. You can not help sympathizing 
with a gallant people. [Hear, hear!] They are the weaker 



4o6 Henry Ward Beecher 

people, tlie minority; and you can not help going with the 
minority who are struggling for their rights against the 
majority. Nothing could be more generous, when a weak 
party stands for its own legitimate right against imperious 
pride and power, than to sympathize with the weak. But 
who ever sympathized with a weak thief, because three con- 
stables had got hold of him? [Hear, hear!] And yet the 
one thief in three policemen's hands is the weaker party; 
I suppose i/ou would sympathize with him. [Hear, hear! 
laughter and applause.] Why, when that infamous king 
of Naples, Bomba [Francis II.], was driven into Gaeta by 
Garibaldi with his immortal band of patriots [186"0] and 
Cavour sent against him the army of Northern Italy, who 
was the weaker party then? The tyrant and his minions; 
and the majority was with the noble Italian patriots, strug- 
gling for liberty. I never heard that Old England sent 
deputations to King Bomba, and yet his troops resisted 
bravely there. [Laughter and interruption.] To-day the 
majority of the people of Rome is with Italy. Nothing 
but French bayonets keep her from going back to the king- 
dom of Italy, to which she belongs.* Do you sympathize 
with the minority in Rome or the majority in Italy? [A 
voice: "With Italy."] To-day the South is the minority in 
America, and they are fighting for "independence !" For 
what? [Uproar. A voice: "Three cheers for independ- 
ence!" and hisses.] I could wish so much bravery had 
had a better cause, and that so much self-denial had been 
less deluded ; that the poisonous and venomous doctrine of 
State Sovereignty might have been kept aloof; that so many 
gallant spirits, such as Stonewall Jackson, might still have 
lived. [Great applause and loud cheers, again and again, 
renewed.] The force of these facts, historical and incon- 
trovertible, can not be broken, except by diverting atten- 
tion by an attack upon the North. It is said that the North 

*Rome was not wrested from the Pope, to become the capital of the kingdom 
of Italy, until 1871, after the French troops were withdrawn for use in the 
Franco-German War. 



Liverpool Address 407 

is fighting for Union, and not for emancipation. The North 
is fighting for Union, for that insures emancipation. [Loud 
cheers, "Oh, oh!" "No, no!" and cheers.] A great many 
men say to ministers of the Gospel: "You pretend to be 
preaching and working for the love of the people. Why, 
you are all the time preaching for the sake of the Church." 
What does the minister say? "It is by means of the 
Church that we help the people." And when men say that 
we are fighting for the Union, I too say we are fighting 
for the Union. [Hear, hear! and a voice: "That's right."] 
But the motive determines the value; and why are we fight- 
ing for the Union.'' Because we never shall forget the tes- 
timony of our enemies. They have gone off declaring that 
the Union in the hands of the North was fatal to slavery. 
[Loud applause.] There is testimony in court for you. 
[A voice: "See that," and laughter.] 

Well, next it is said that the North treats the negro race 
worse than the South. [Applause, cries of "Bravo!" and 
uproar.] Now, you see I don't fear any of these disagree- 
able arguments. I am going to face every one of them. 
In the first place, I am ashamed to confess that such was 
the thoughtlessness — [interruption] — such was the stupor 
of the North — [renewed interruption] — you will get a word 
at a time; to-morrow will let folks see what it is you don't 
want to hear — that for a period of twenty-five years she 
went to sleep, and permitted herself to be drugged and 
poisoned with the Southern prejudice against black men. 
[Applause and uproar.] The evil was made worse, because, 
when any object whatever has caused anger between politi- 
cal parties, a political animosity arises against that object, 
no matter how innocent in itself; no matter what were the 
original influences which excited the quarrel. Thus the 
colored man has been the football between the two parties 
in the North, and has suffered accordingly. I confess it to 
my shame. But I am speaking now on my own ground, for 
I began twenty-five years ago, with a small party, to com- 
bat the unjust dislike of the colored man. [Loud applause, 



4o8 Henry Ward Beecher 

dissension, and uproar. The interruption at this point be- 
came so violent that the friends of Mr. Beecher tliroughout 
the hall rose to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs, 
and renewing their shouts of applause. The interruption 
lasted some minutes.] Well, I have lived to see a total rev- 
olution in the Northern feeling — I stand here to bear solemn 
witness of that. It is not my opinion; it is my knowledge. 
[Great uproar.] Those men who undertook to stand up for 
the rights of all men — black as well as white — have in- 
creased in number; and now what party in the North rep- 
resents those men that resist the evil prejudices of past 
years? The Republicans are that party. [Loud applause.] 
And who are those men in the North that have oppressed 
the negro .^ They are the Peace Democrats; and the preju- 
dice for which in England you are attempting to punish 
me, is a prejudice raised by the men who have opposed me 
all my life. These pro-slavery Democrats abused the negro. 
I defended him, and they mobbed me for doing it. Oh. 
justice! [Loud laughter, applause, and hisses.] This is as 
if a man should commit an assault, maim and wound a 
neighbor, and a surgeon being called in should begin to 
dress his wounds, and by and by a policeman should come 
and collar the surgeon and haul him off to prison on ac- 
count of the wounds which he was healing. 

Now, I told you I would not flinch from anything. I am 
going to read you some questions that were sent after me 
from Glasgow, purporting to be from a workingman. 
[Great interruption.] If those pro-slavery interrupters 
think they will tire me out, they will do more than eight 
millions in America could. [Applause and renewed inter- 
ruption.] I was reading a question on your side too: 

"Is it not a fact that in most of the Northern States laws 
exist precluding negroes from equal civil and political rights 
with the whites ? That in the State of New York the negro 
has to be the possessor of at least two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars' worth of property to entitle him to the privileges of a 
white citizen? That in some of the Northern States the col- 



Liverpool Address 409 

ored man, whether bond or free, is by law excluded alto- 
gether, and not suffered to enter the State limits, under se- 
vere penalties? And is not Air. Lincoln's own State one of 
them ? And in view of tlie fact that the $20,000,000 compen- 
sation which was promised to Missouri in aid of emancipa- 
tion was defeated in the last Congress (the strongest Re- 
publican Congress that ever assembled), what has the North 
done toward emancipation?" 

Now, then, there's a dose for you. [A voice: "Answer 
it."] And I will address myself to the answering of it. 

And first, the bill for emancipation in ^Missouri, to which 
this money was denied, was a bill which was drawn by 
what we call "log-rollers," who inserted in it an enormously 
disproportioned price for the slaves. The Republicans of- 
fered to give them $10,000,000 for the slaves in Missouri, 
and the// outvoted it because they could not get $12,000,000. 
Already half the slave population had been "run" down 
South, and yet they came up to Congress to get $12,000,000 
for what was not worth ten millions, nor even eight mil- 
lions. 

Now as to those States that had passed "black" laws, as 
we call them ; they are filled with Southern emigrants. The 
southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of Indiana, where 
I mvself lived for years and which I knew like a book, the 
southern part of Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln lives [great 
uproar] — these parts are largely settled by emigrants from 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Caro- 
lina, and it was their votes, or the Northern votes pander- 
ing for political reasons to theirs, that passed in those 
States the infamous "black " laws; and the Republicans in 
these States have a record, clean and white, as having op- 
posed these laws in every instance as "infamous." 

Now as to the State of New York; it is asked whether a 
negro is not obliged to have a certain freehold property, or 
a certain amount of property, before he can vote. It is so 
still in North Carolina and Rhode Island for white folks — 
it is so in New York State. [Mr. Beecher's voice slightly 



4IO Henry Ward Beecher 

failed him here, and he was interrupted by a person who 
tried to imitate him. Cries of "Shame!" and "Turn him 
out!"] I ain not undertaking to say that these faults of 
the North, which were brought upon them by the bad ex- 
ample and influence of the South, are all cured ; but I do 
say that tliey are in a process of cure which promises, if 
unimpeded by foreign influence, to make all such odious 
distinctions vanish. 

I>et us compare the condition of the negro in the 
North and tlie South, and that will tell the story. By ex- 
press law the South takes away from tlie slave all attributes 
of manhood, and calls him "chattel," which is another word 
for "cattle." [Hear, hear, and hisses.] No law in any 
Northern State calls him anything else but a person. [Ap- 
plause.] ... In the South no colored man can de- 
termine [iiproar] — no colored man can determine in the 
South where he will work, nor at what he will work; but 
in the North — except in the great cities, where we are 
crowded by foreigners — in any country-part, the black man 
may choose his trade and work at it, and is just as much 
protected by the laws as any white man in the land. [Ap- 
plause.] I speak with authority on this point. [Cries of 
"No."] When I was twelve years old, my father hired 
Charles Smith, a man as black as lampblack, to work on 
his farm. I slept in the same room with him. ["Oh, oh."] 
Ah, that doesn't suit you. [Uproar.] Now, you see, the 
South comes out. [Loud laughter.] I ate with him at the 
same table ; I sang with him out of the same hymn-book 
["Good"]; I cried when he prayed over me at night; and 
if I had serious iuipressions of religion early in life, they 
were due to tlie fidelity and example of that poor humble 
farm laborer, black Charles Smith. [Tremendous uproar 
and cheers.] In the South, no matter what injury a col- 
ored man may receive, he is not allowed to appear in court 
nor to testify against a white man. [A voice, "That's a 
fact."] In every single court of the North a respectable 
colored man is as good a witness as if his face were white 



Liverpool Address 411 

as an angel's robe. [Applause and laughte?:] I ask any 
truthful and considerate man whether^ in this contrast, it 
does not appear that, though faults may yet linger in the 
North uneradicated, the state of the negro in the North is 
immeasurably better than anywhere in the South? [Ap- 
plause.] 

There is another fact that I wish to allude to — not for 
the sake of reproach or blame, but by way of claiming your 
more lenient consideration — and that is, that slavery was 
entailed upon us by your action. [Hear, hear!] Against 
the earnest protests of the colonists the then government 
of Great Britain — I will concede not knowing what were 
the mischiefs — ignorantly, but in point of fact, forced slave 
traffic on the unwilling colonists. [Great uproar, in the 
midst of which one individual was lifted up and carried 
out of the room amid cheers and hisses.] 

I was going to ask you, suppose a child was born with 
hereditary disease ; suppose this disease was entailed upon 
him by parents who had contracted it by their own mis- 
conduct, — would it be fair that those parents that had 
brought into the world the diseased child, should rail at 
that child because it was diseased. ["No, no!"] Would 
not the child have a right to turn round and say: "Father, 
it was your fault that I had it, and you ought to be pleased 
to be patient with my deficiencies." [Applause and hisses, 
and cries of "Order!" Great interruption and great dis- 
turbance here look place on the right of the platform. The 
interruption continued until another person was carried out 
of the hall, Mr. Beecher continued:] I do not ask that 
you should justify slavery in us, because it was wrong in 
you two hundred years ago; but having ignorantly been the 
means of fixing it upon us, now that we are struggling with 
mortal struggles to free ourselves from it, we have a right 
to your tolerance, your patience, and charitable construc- 
tions. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I have finished the exposition of 
this troubled subject. [Renewed and continued interrup- 



412 Henry Ward Beecher 

tion.^ No man can unveil the future; no man can tell what 
revolutions are about to break upon the world; no man can 
tell what destiny belongs to Prance, nor to any of the Eu- 
ropean powers ; but one thing is certain, that in the exigen- 
cies of the future there will be combinations and recombina- 
tions, and that those nations that are of the same faith, the 
same blood, and the same substantial interests, ought not to 
be alienated from each other, but ought to stand together. 
[Immense cheering and liisses.] I do not say that you 
ought not to be in the most friendly alliance with France 
or with Germany ; but I do say that your o^v7i children, the 
offspring of England, ought to be nearer to you than any 
people of strange tongue. [A voice: "Degenerate sons," 
applause and liissesj another voice: "What about the 
'Trent'?"] If there had been any feelings of bitterness in 
America, let me tell you that they had been excited, rightly 
or wrongly, under the impression that Great Britain was 
going to intervene between us and our own lawful struggle. 
[A voice — "No. '"and applause.] With the evidence that there 
is no such intention, all bitter feelings will pass away. [Ap- 
plause.] We do not agree with the recent doctrine of neu- 
trality as a question of law. But it is past, and we are not 
disposed to raise that question. We accept it now as a fact, 
and we say that the utterance of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie 
[applause, hisses, and a voice: "What about Lord Brough- 
am?"], together with the declaration of the Government in 
stopping war-steamers here [great uproar, and applause^ 
has gone far toward quieting every fear and removing every 
apprehension from our minds. [Uproar and shouts of ap- 
plause.] And now in the future it is the work of every good 
man and patriot not to create divisions, but to do the things 
that will make for peace. ["Oh, oh!" and laughter.] On 
our part it shall be done. [Applause and hisses, and "No, 
no!"] On your part it ought to be done; and when in any 
of the convulsions that come upon the world, Great Britain 
finds herself struggling single-handed against the gigantic 
powers that spread oppression and darkness [applause, 



Liverpool Address 413 

hisses, and uproar], there ought to be such cordiality that 
she can turn and say to her first-born and most illustrious 
child, "Come!" ["Hear, hear.'" applause, tremendous cheers 
and uproar,] I will not say that England can not again, 
as hitherto, single-handed, manage any power [applause 
and uproar], but I will say that England and America to- 
gether for religion and liberty \_A voice: "Soap, soap," 
uproar and great applause], are a match for the world. 
[Applause; a voice: "They don't want any more soft soap."] 
Now, gentlemen and ladies [A voice: "Sai7i Slick"; and 
another voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please"], 
when I came I was asked whether I would answer questions, 
and I very readily consented to do so, as I had in other 
places ; but I will tell you it was because I expected to have 
the oi^portunity of speaking with some sort of ease and 
quiet. [A voice: "So you have."] I have for an hour and 
a half spoken against a storm ["Hear, hear!"], and you 
yourselves are witnesses that, by the interruption, I have 
been obliged to strive with my voice, so that I no longer 
have the power to control it in the face of this assembly. 
[Applause.] And although I am in spirit perfectly willing 
to answer any question, and more than glad of the chance, 
yet I am by this very unnecessary opposition to-night in- 
capacitated physically from doing it. . . . 

[Mr. Beecher, nevertheless, did answer amid noisy interruptions 
three questions, presented in writing, concerning the rights of 
negroes in his church in Brooklyn, the part played by the tariff in 
Lincoln's election, and the right of negroes to ride in public 
vehicles in New York city. In spite of hisses, groans and cat-calls, 
a vote of thanks to Mr. Beecher, proposed by the managers of the 
meeting, was carried with loud and prolonged cheering.] 



27. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois.— GETTYS- 
BURG ADDRESS 

(Delivered at Gettysburg, Pa., November 19, 1863.) 

The year 1863 was the decisive year of the war. On 
January 1st President Lincohi issued his final emancipa- 
tion proclamation; on July ith General Grant received the 
surrender of Vicksburg, thus opening the Mississippi river 
and isolating the main States of the Confederacy from the 
Southwest; and on July 1st to 3d General Meade defeated 
Lee at Gettysburg in the greatest battle of the Civil War, 
and destroyed the last chance of the Confederates to in- 
vade the North in force. 

Lee's retreat following the battle of Gettysburg, and 
Meade's pursuit of him, left thousands of dead to be buried 
by the Pennsylvania authorities ; and Governor Curtin pro- 
posed to the Governors of the other sixteen States whose 
troops were engaged, that a portion of the field of battle 
be acquired and used as a national cemetery. The proposal 
met with hearty approval, and was carried out. The date 
set for the formal dedication of the cemetery was Novem- 
ber I9th. Hon. Edward Everett was chosen as the orator 
for the occasion; and, in addition. President Lincoln as the 
Chief Executive of the nation was invited to "formally set 
apart tliese grounds to their sacred use b}^ a few apjjropri- 
ate remarks." The invitation was accepted, and on the 
18th Lincoln left Washington for Gettysburg by a special 
train. On the 19th a great procession was formed and 

414 



Gettysburg Address 415 

marched with military music to the new cemetery, where 
the program was carried out as arranged. 

Mr. Everett was at this time in the height of his great 
powers ; he had served ten years in Congress, been minister 
to England, Secretary of State under President Fillmore, 
United States Senator, and nominee of the Constitutional 
Union party in I860 for Vice-President. The speech which 
he delivered was worthy alike of his fame and of the occa- 
sion. He discussed at length the battle, the origin and 
character of the war, and the object and consequences of 
the victory. For two hours he held his audience spell- 
bound. 

Then President Lincoln arose — before an audience of 
flagging attention and following one of the greatest orators 
of the day — to utter the formal dedication. What was ex- 
pected to be a mere perfunctory utterance proved to be the 
vital heart of the occasion. "Then and there," say Lin- 
coln's biographers, "the President pronounced an address 
so pertinent, so brief yet so comprehensive, so terse, so 
eloquent, linking the deeds of the present to the thoughts 
of the future, with simple words, in such living, original, 
yet exquisitely molded maxim-like phrases, that the best 
critics hav.e awarded it an unquestioned rank as one of the 
world's masterpieces of rhetorical art." (Nicolay and Hay, 
Abraham Lincoln, VIII, pp. 201-2.) Well might Mr. 
Everett write to Lincoln next day, "I should be glad if I 
could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea 
of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." 

The preparation of Lincoln's address must have been a 
matter of considerable thought with him. A part of it was 
written before leaving Washington; but the latter half, it 
seems, was written out by the President, with the stub end 
of a lead pencil, on the crowded train which bore him to 
Gettysburg. 



41 6 Abraham Lincoln 



[Abraham Linxoln, at Gettysburg, Pa., November 1,5, 186;?.] 

FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition tliat all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil 
war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battle-field of that war. \^'e have come to dedicate a por- 
tion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here 
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger 
sense we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can 
not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power 
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long re- 
member, what we say here; but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be 
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new 
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 



28. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois.— SECOND 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

(Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1865.) 

By March, 1865, it was evident that the war was nearing 
its end. Grant had justified his appointment as lieutenant- 
general in command of all the armies in the field (March, 
1864) bj^ doggedly carrying the Army of the Potomac to 
the vicinity of Richmond, where he was then slowly loosen- 
ing Lee's hold upon Petersburg and the Confederate capi- 
tal. Sherman meanwhile had, with Grant's consent, pushed 
from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and "from Atlanta to the 
sea" (November-December, 1864<), wounding the Confed- 
eracy in its very heart. In spite of discouraging opposition 
within the Republican party, Lincoln had been triumph- 
antly renominated and re-elected to the Presidency. Al- 
ready his mind was busy with generous plans for that re- 
construction of the Union which nuist follow the inevitable 
collapse and surrender of the Confederate forces. 

It was in these circumstances that Lincoln composed and 
delivered his second inaugural address, — a document which 
Mr. Rhodes calls "the greatest of presidential inaugurals, 
one of the noblest of state papers." Lincoln himself, whose 
judgment was biased by no petty vanity of authorship, 
spoke of it in these terms: "I expect it to wear as well as 
— perhaps better than — anything I have produced ; but I 
believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flat- 
tered by being shown that there has been a difference of 
purpose between the Almighty and them. . . . It is a 

417 



4i8 Abraham Lincoln 

truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever 
of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, 
I thought others might afford for me to tell it." (Morse, 
Abraham Lincoln, II, pp. 314-15.) 



[Abraham Lincoln, at Washington, March 4, 1865.] 

FELLOW Countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less oc- 
casion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to 
be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the 
expiration of four years, during which public declarations 
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase 
of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could 
be presented. 

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly de- 
pends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, 
I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. 
With high hojie for the future, no prediction in regard to it 
is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. 
All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural 
address was being delivered from this place, devoted alto- 
gether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents 
were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking 
to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. 
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make 
war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish ; and the war came. • 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the 
southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and 
powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow 



Second Inaugural 419 

the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and ex- 
tend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents 
would rend the Union even by war, while the Government 
claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial 
enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the 
duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated 
that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even be- 
fore, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an 
easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astound- 
ing. 

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and 
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange 
that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in 
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; 
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of 
both could not be answered. That of neither has been an- 
swered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the 
world because of offenses ! for it must needs be that offenses 
come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these 
offenses which in the providence of God must needs come, 
but which having continued through His appointed time He 
now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and 
South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom 
the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure 
from those divine attributes which the believers in a living 
God always ascribe to him } Fondly do we hope, — fervently 
do we pray, — that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass 
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of un- 
requited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with 
the sword, — as was said three thousand years ago, so still 
it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 



420 Abraham Lincoln 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firm- 
ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, — let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the Nation's 
wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
and for his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and 
with all nations. 



29. ANDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee.— PRESI- 
DENTIAL PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION 

(Message to Congress, December 4, 1865.) 

Four distinct theories of political Reconstruction, besides 
minor variations, were put forward during and following 
the Civil War. 

(1) The theory of "Restoration" was insisted upon espe- 
cially by the Democrats^ who demanded that the seceded 
States be restored at the end of the war to their constitu- 
tional rights, less slavery. On their side they had joint 
resolutions of Congress, adopted in 1861, declaring that 
the w^ar was prosecuted "to preserve the Union with all the 
dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unim- 
paired;" and they could also appeal to various acts of both 
houses of Congress recognizing loyal State governments or- 
ganized in seceded States. As Representative George H. 
Pendleton of Ohio stated it (May 4, 186l): "Acts of 
secession are not invalid to destroy the Union, and yet valid 
to destroy the State governments and the political privi- 
leges of their citizens." 

(2) The "Presidential" theory was put forth by Lin- 

Andrew Johnson. Born in North Carolina, 1808; left an orphan at the age 
of four, apprenticed to a tailor at the a^e of ten, and learned to read and write 
only after attaining manhood: settled at Greenville, Tenn., 1826: eici-ted to 
Tennessee legislature in 1833 and 1839, and to the State Senate in 18.J1 : Demo- 
cratic member of Congress, 1843-53: Governor of Tennessee, 1853-57: in U. S. 
Senate, 1857-62, where he showed pronounced Unionist sentiment; appointed 
military governor of Tennessee by President Lincoln, 1862: elected Vice-Presi- 
dent with Lincoln on Union party ticket, 186-1: President, 1865-69: impeached 
but acquitted, 1868; elected to U. S. Senate, 1875; died, 1S75. 

421 



422 Andrew Johnson 

coin in 1863, and was acted upon by Andrew Johnson when 
he succeeded to the presidential office following Lincoln's 
assassination (April 15, 1865). This theory placed in the 
President's hands the right to decide when the seceded 
States had given sufficient evidence of repentance to be re- 
stored to their rights in the Union, but recognized that the 
right of admission of Senators and Representatives be- 
longed to the separate houses of Congress. It did not pro- 
vide, moreover, for negro suftrage, and gave Congress no 
participation in reconstruction aside from that stated. 

(3) Senator Sumner's theory was that of "State suicide." 
It held that the ordinances of secession were virtually an 
abdication by the seceding States of all their rights under 
the Constitution, though the ordinances could not carry 
them out of the Union ; that thenceforth these States held 
the status of Territories, and Congress had exclusive juris- 
diction over them. He proposed also to extend the suffrage 
to the former slaves. 

(4) Senator Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania advanced 
the most radical theory of all, which may be called the 
"conquered provinces" theory. He held that the seceding 
States had repudiated tlie Constitution ; that they were 
thereby "estopped" (to use a legal phrase) from pleading 
it against any action taken by their conquerors ; and that 
Congress had unlimited powers in dealing with them. He 
would not only insist upon negro suffrage, but in a speech 
at Lancaster, Pa. (September, 1865), he proposed the con- 
fiscation of most of the land of the "rebels," from which 
every freedman was to receive forty acres, tlie remainder 
(estimated at three and one-half billion dollars) to be used 
in paying off the national debt. 

The selection which follows comprises those portions of 
President Johnson's first message to Congress wliich dealt 
with Reconstruction. Its excellent tenor and style, and the 



Presidential Reconstruction 423 

conciliatory attitude here shown toward Congress, made a 
good impression, but did not disarm the hostility of Sumner 
and Stevens toward the President's policy. In the end, 
they were able to carry Congress and the country with 
them. This was unfortunate, for the sober judgment of 
history coincides with that of Senator Sherman, who wrote 
(Recollections, I, p. 36'1): "After this long lapse of time, 
I am convinced that Mr. Johnson's scheme of reorganiza- 
tion' was wise and judicious. It was unfortunate that it 
had not the sanction of Congress, and that events soon 
brought the President and Congress into conflict." 

As is often the case with presidential messages, the actual 
composition of this important document was not the work 
of the President himself. The secret was long successfully 
kept, but recent investigation among the Johnson manu- 
scripts in the Library of Congress conclusively shows (see 
American Historical Review, April, 1906) that the real au- 
thor was the veteran historian, George Bancroft, who, like 
President Johnson himself, was a life-long Democrat and 
an ardent Unionist. 



[Andrew Johnson, message to Congress, December 4, ims.] 

FELLOW Citizens of the Senate and House of 
Representatives: To express gratitude to God in 
the name of the people for the preservation of the 
United States is my first duty in addressing you. Our 
thoughts next revert to the death of the late President by 
an act of parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still 
fresh. It finds some solace in the consideration that he lived 
to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence by entering on 
the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to which he had 
been elected; that he brought the Civil War substantially 
to a close; that his loss was deplored in all parts of the 
Union, and that foreign nations have rendered justice to 



424 Andrew Johnson 

his memory. His removal east upon me a heavier weight 
of cares than ever devolved upon any one of his predeces- 
sors. To fulfill my trust I need the support and confidence 
of all who are associated with me in the various depart- 
ments of government and the support and confidence of 
the people. There is but one way in which I can hope to 
gain their necessary aid. It is to state with frankness the 
principles which guide my conduct, and their application 
to the present state of affairs, well aware that the efficiency 
of my labors will in a great measure depend on your and 
their luidivided approbation. 

The Union of the United States of America was intended 
by its authors to last as long as the States themselves shall 
last. "The Union shall be perpetual" are the words of the 
Confederation. "To form a more perfect Union," by an 
ordinance of the people of the United States^ is the de- 
clared purpose of tlie Constitution. . . . The Consti- 
tution to which life was thus imparted contains within it- 
self ample resources for its own preservation. It has 
power to enforce the laws, punish treason, and insure do- 
mestic tranquillity. In case of the usurpation of the gov- 
ernment of a State by one man or an oligarchy, it becomes 
a duty of the United States to make good the guaranty to 
that State of a republican form of government, and so to 
maintain the homogeneousness of all. . . . No room is 
allowed even for the thought of a possibility of its coming 
to an end. . . . The Constitution is the work of "the 
people of the United States," and it should be as indestruc- 
tible as the people. 

The maintenance of the Union brings with it "the sup- 
port of the State governments in all their rights," but it is 
not one of the rights of any State government to renounce 
its own place in the Union or to nullify the laws of the 
Union. 

States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to 
the existence of the Constitution of the United States. At 
the very commencement, when we assumed a place among 



Presidential Reconstruction 425 

the powers of the earth, the Declaration of Independence 
was adopted by States ; so also were the Articles of Con- 
federation; and when "the people of the United States" or- 
dained and established the Constitution it was the assent 
of the States, one by one, which gave it vitality. In the 
event, too, of any amendment to the Constitution, the propo- 
sition of Congress needs the confirmation of States. With- 
out States one great branch of the legislative government 
would be wanting. And if we look beyond the letter of the 
Constitution to the character of our countr}^, its capacity 
for comprehending within its j urisdiction a ' vast conti- 
nental empire is due to the system of States. The best se- 
curity for the perpetual existence of the States is the "su- 
preme authority" of the Constitution of the United States. 
The perpetuity of the Constitution brings with it the per- 
petuity of the States ; tlieir mutual relation makes us what 
we are, and in our political system their connection is in- 
dissoluble. The whole can not exist without the parts, nor 
the parts without the whole. So long as the Constitution of 
the United States endures, the States will endure. The de- 
struction of the one is the destruction of the other ; the 
preservation of the one is the preservation of the other. 

I have thus explained my views of the mutual relations 
of the Constitution and the States, because they unfold the 
principles on which I have sought to solve the momentous 
questions and overcome the appalling difficulties that met 
me at the very commencement of my administration. It 
has been my steadfast object to escape from the sway of 
momentary passions and to derive a healing policy from 
the fundamental and unchanging principles of the Consti- 
tution. 

I found the States suffering from the effects of a civil 
war. Resistance to the General Government appeared to 
have exhausted itself. The United States had recovered 
possession of their forts and arsenals, and their armies 
were in the occupation of every State which had attempted 
to secede. Whether the territory within the limits of those 



426 Andrew Johnson 

States should be held as conquered territory, under mili- 
tary authority emanating from the President as the head 
of the Army, was the first question that presented itself 
for decision. 

Now military governments, established for an indefinite 
jaeriod, would have offered no security for the early sup- 
pression of discontent, would have divided the people into 
the vanquishers and the vanquished, and would have en- 
venomed hatred rather than have restored affection. Once 
established, no precise limit to their continuance was con- 
ceivable. They would have occasioned an incalculable and 
exhausting expense. Peaceful emigration to and from that 
portion of the country is one of the best means that can 
be thought of for the restoration of harmony, and that emi- 
gration would have been prevented ; for what emigrant 
from abroad, what industrious citizen at home, would place 
himself willingly under military rule? The chief persons 
who would have followed in the train of the Army would 
have been dependents on the General Government or men 
who exjiected to profit from the miseries of their erring 
fellow citizens. The powers of patronage and rule which 
would have been exercised, under the President, over a vast 
and populous and naturally wealthy region are greater than, 
unless under extreme necessity, I should be willing to in- 
trust to any one man. They are such as, for mj'self, I could 
never, unless on occasions of great emergency, consent to 
exercise. The willful use of such powers, if continued 
through a jjeriod of years, would have endangered the pur- 
ity of the general administration and the liberties of the 
States which remained loyal. 

Besides, the policy of military rule over a conquered ter- 
ritory would have implied that the States whose inhabitants 
may have taken part in the rebellion had by the act of those 
inhabitants ceased to exist. But the true theory is that all 
pretended acts of secession were from the beginning null 
and void. The States can not commit treason nor screen 
the individual citizens who may have committed treason 



Presidential Reconstruction 427 

any more than they can make valid treaties or engage in 
lawful commerce with any foreign power. The States at- 
tempting to secede placed themselves in a condition where 
their vitality was impaired, but not extinguished; their 
functions suspended, but not destroyed. 

But if any State neglects or refuses to perform its of- 
fices there is the more need that the General Government 
should maintain all its authority and as soon as practicable 
resume the exercise of all its functions. On this principle 
I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by al- 
most imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful 
energy of the General Government and of the States. To 
that end provisional governors have been appointed for the 
States, conventions called, governors elected, legislatures 
assembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen to the 
Congress of the United States. At the same time the courts 
of the United States, as far as could be done, have been 
reopened, so that the laws of the United States may be en- 
forced through their agency. The blockade has been re- 
moved and the custom-houses re-established in ports of en- 
try, so that the revenue of the United States may be col- 
lected. The Post-Office Department renews its ceaseless 
activity, and the General Government is thereby enabled 
to communicate promptly with its officers and agents. The 
courts bring security to persons and property ; the opening 
of the ports invites the restoration of industry and com- 
merce; the post-office renews the facilities of social inter- 
course and of business. And is it not happy for us all that 
the restoration of each one of these functions of the Gen- 
eral Government brings with it a blessing to the States over 
which they are extended ? Is it not a sure promise of har- 
mony and renewed attachment to the Union that after all 
that has happened the return of the General Government 
is known only as a beneficence? 

I know very well that this policy is attended with some 
risk ; that for its success it requires at least the acquiescence 
of the States which it concerns ; that it implies an invitation 



428 Andrew Johnson 

to those States, by renewing their allegiance to the United 
States, to resume their functions as States of the Union. 
But it is a risk that must be taken. In the choice of diffi- 
culties it is the smallest risk ; and to diminish and if pos- 
sible to remove all danger, I have felt it incumbent on me 
to assert one other power of the General Government — the 
power of pardon. As no State can throw a defense over 
the crime of treason, the power of pardon is exclusively 
vested in the executive government of the United States. 
In exercising that power I have taken every precaution to 
connect it with the clearest recognition of the binding force 
of the laws of the United States and an unqualified ac- 
knowledgment of the great social change of condition in 
regard to slavery which has grown out of the war. 

The next step which I have taken to restore the consti- 
tutional relations of the States has been an invitation to 
them to participate in the high office of amending the Con- 
stitution. Every patriot must wish for a general amnesty 
at the earliest epoch consistent witli public safety. For this 
great end there is need of a concurrence of all opinions 
and the spirit of mutual conciliation. All parties in the 
late terrible conflict must work together in harmony. It is 
not too nmch to ask, in the name of the whole people, that 
on the one side the plan of restoration shall proceed in con- 
formity with a willingness to cast the disorders of the past 
into oblivion, and that on the other the evidence of sincerity 
in the future maintenance of the Union shall be put beyond 
any doubt by the ratification of the proposed amendment to 
the Constitution, which provides for the abolition of slavery 
forever within the limits of our country.* So long as the 
adoption of this amendment is delayed, so long will doubt 
and jealousy and uncertainty prevail. This is the measure 
which will efface the sad memory of the past; this is the 
measure which will most certainly call population and capi- 
tal and security to those parts of the Union that need them 

*The Thirteentli amendment, proposed by Contriess, February 1, 1.S65, and de- 
clared in force December 18, 1805. 



Presidential Reconstruction 429 

most. Indeed, it is not too much to ask of the States which 
are now resuming their places in the family of the Union 
to give this pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace. Until 
it is done the past, however much we maj' desire it, will not 
be forgotten. The adoption of the amendment reunites us 
beyond all power of disruption; it heals the wound that is 
still imperfectly closed; it removes slavery, the element 
which has so long perplexed and divided the country; it 
makes of us once more a united people, renewed and 
strengthened, bound more than ever to mutual affection and 
support. 

The amendment of the Constitution being adopted, it 
would remain for the States whose powers have been so 
long in abeyance to resume their places in the two branches 
of the National Legislature, and thereby complete the work 
of restoration. Here it is for you, fellow citizens of the 
Senate, and for you, fellow citizens of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, to judge, each for yourselves, of the elections, 
returns, and qualifications of your own members. 

The full assertion of the powers of the General Govern- 
ment requires the holding of circuit courts of the United 
States within the districts where their authority has been 
interrupted. In the present posture of our public affairs 
strong objections have been urged to holding those courts 
in any of the States where the rebellion has existed; and it 
was ascertained by inquiry that the circuit court of the 
United States would not be held within the district of Vir- 
ginia during the autumn or early winter, nor until Con- 
gress should have "an opportunity to consider and act on 
the whole subject." To your deliberations the restoration 
of this branch of the civil authority of the United States 
is therefore necessarily referred, with the hope that early 
provisions will be made for the resumption of all its func- 
tions. It is manifest that treason, most flagrant in char- 
acter, has been committed. Persons who are charged with 
its commission should have fair and impartial trials in the 
highest civil tribunals of the country, in order that the Con- 



430 Andrew Johnson 

stitution and the laws may be fully vindicated, the truth 
clearly established and affirmed that treason is a crime, 
that traitors should be punished and the offense made infa- 
mous, and, at the same time, that the question may be judi- 
cially settled, finally and forever, that no State of its own 
will has the right to renounce its place in the Union. 

The relations of the General Government toward the 
four million inhabitants whom the war has called into free- 
dom have engaged my most serious consideration. On the 
propriety of attempting to make the freedmen electors by 
the proclamation of the Executive, I took for my counsel 
the Constitution itself, the interpretations of that instru- 
ment by its authors and their contemporaries, and recent 
legislation by Congress. When, at the first movement to- 
ward independence, the Congress of the United States in- 
structed the several States to institute governments of their 
own, they left each State to decide for itself the conditions 
for the enjoyment of the elective franchise. During the 
period of the Confederacy there continued to exist a very 
great diversity in the qualifications of electors in the sev- 
eral States, and even within a State a distinction of quali- 
fications prevailed with regard to the officers who were to 
be chosen. The Constitution of the United States recog- 
nizes these diversities when it enjoins that in the choice of 
members of the House of Representatives of the United 
States "the electors in each State shall have the qualifica- 
tions requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of 
the State legislature." After the formation of the Consti- 
tution it remained, as before, the uniform usage for each 
State to enlarge the body of its electors according to its 
own judgment; and under this system one State after an- 
other has proceeded to increase the number of its electors, 
until now universal suffrage, or something very near it, is 
the general rule. So fixed was this reservation of power 
in the habits of the people and so unquestioned has been 
the interpretation of the Constitution, that during the civil 
war the late President never harbored the purpose — cer- 



Presidential Reconstruction 431 

tainly never avowed the purpose — of disregarding it; and 
in the acts of Congress during that period nothing can be 
found which, during the continuance of hostilities, much 
less after their close, would have sanctioned any departure 
by the Executive from a policy which has so uniformly ob- 
tained. Moreover, a concession of the elective franchise 
to the freedmen by act of the President of the United States 
must have been extended to all colored men, wherever 
found, and so must have established a change of suffrage in 
the Northern, Middle, and Western States, not less than in 
the Southern and Southwestern. Such an act would have 
created a new class of voters, and would have been an as- 
sumption of power by the President which nothing in the 
Constitution or laws of the United States would have war- 
ranted. 

On the other hand, every danger of conflict is avoided 
when the settlement of the question is referred to the sev- 
eral States. They can, each for itself, decide on the meas- 
ure, and whether it is to be adopted at once and absolutely 
or introduced gradually and with conditions. In my judg- 
ment the freedmen, if they show patience and manly vir- 
tues, will sooner obtain a participation in the elective fran- 
chise through the States than through the General Govern- 
ment, even if it had power to intervene. When the tumult 
of emotions that have been raised by the suddenness of the 
social change shall have subsided, it may prove that they 
will receive the kindest usage from some of those on whom 
they have heretofore most closely depended. 

But while I have no doubt that now, after the close of 
the war, it is not competent for the General Government 
to extend the elective franchise in the several States, it is 
equally clear that good faith requires the security of the 
freedom in their liberty and their property, their right to 
labor, and their right to claim the just return of their 
labor. I can not too strongly urge a dispassionate treat- 
ment of this subject, which should be carefully kept aloof 
from all party strife. We must equally avoid hasty as- 



432 Andrew Johnson 

sumptions of any natural impossibility for the two races 
to live side by side in a state of mutual benefit and good 
will. The experiment involves us in no inconsistency; let 
us, then, go on and make that experiment in good faith, 
and not be too easily disheartened. The country is in need 
of labor, and the freedmen are in need of employment, cul- 
ture, and protection. While their right of voluntary migra- 
tion and expatriation is not to be questioned, I would not 
advise their forced removal and colonization. Let us rather 
encourage them to honorable and useful industry, where it 
may be beneficial to themselves and to the country; and, 
instead of hasty anticipations of the certainty of failure, 
let there be nothing wanting to the fair trial of the experi- 
ment. The change in their condition is the substitution of 
labor by contract for the status of slavery. The freedmen 
can not fairly be accused of unwillingness to work so long 
as a doubt remains about his freedom of choice in his pur- 
suits and the certainty of his recovering his stipulated 
wages. In this the interests of the employer and the em- 
ployed coincide. The emijloyer desires in his workmen 
spirit and alacrity, and these can be permanently secured 
in no other way. And if the one ought to be able to enforce 
the contract, so ought the other. The public interest will be 
best promoted if the several States will provide adequate 
protection and remedies for the freedmen. Until tliis is 
in some way accomplished there is no chance for the ad- 
vantageous use of their labor, and the blame of ill success 
will not rest on them. 

I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for the im- 
mediate realization of its remotest aims, but time is always 
an element in reform. It is one of the greatest acts on rec- 
ord to have brought four million people into freedom. The 
career of free industry must be fairly opened to them, and 
then their future prosperity and condition must, after all, 
rest mainly on themselves. If they fail, and so perish away, 
let us be careful that the failure shall not be attributable to 
any denial of justice. In all that relates to the destiny of 



Presidential Reconstruction 433 

the f reedmen we need not be too anxious to read the future ; 
many incidents which, from a speculative point of view, 
might raise alarm will quietly settle themselves. 

Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end, the great- 
ness of its evil in the point of view of public economy be- 
comes more and more apparent. Slavery was essentially a 
monopoly of labor, and as such locked the States where it 
prevailed against the incoming of free industry. Where 
labor was the property of the capitalist, the white man was 
excluded from employment, or had but the second best 
chance of finding it; and the foreign emigrant turned away 
from the region where his condition would be so precarious. 
With the destruction of the monopoly, free labor will hasten 
from all parts of the civilized world to assist in developing 
various and immeasurable resources which have hitherto 
lain dormant. The eight or nine States nearest the Gulf 
of Mexico have a soil of exuberant fertility, a climate 
friendly to long life, and can sustain a denser population 
than is found as yet in any part of our country. And the 
future influx of population to them will be mainly from the 
North or from the most cultivated nations in Europe. From 
the sufferings that have attended them during our late 
struggle let us look away to the future, which is sure to be 
laden for them with greater prosperity than has ever be- 
fore been known. The removal of the monopoly of slave 
labor is a pledge that those regions will be peopled by a 
numerous and enterprising population, which will vie with 
any in the Union in compactness, inventive genius, wealth, 
and industry. 



30. THADDEUS STEVENS, of Pennsylvania.— RAD- 
ICAL VIEW OF RECONSTRUCTION 

(Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, January 3, 1867.) 

President Johnson, proceeding along the lines indicated 
in the foregoing message, sought to punish only the per- 
sons chiefly responsible for the rebellion, while restoring 
. the seceded States to their rights as soon as they formed 
loyal State governments. Congress, however, refused to 
admit the Senators and Representatives which these States 
chose. The radicals in Congress were strengthened in their 
position by the action of the provisional governments in 
enacting statutes concerning "vagrancy" and "labor con- 
tracts" which seemed designed to keep the negro in a ])er- 
manent state of subjection, and also by the rejection of the 
Fourteenth amendment by all the Southern States except 
Tennessee (1866). Meanwhile, open warfare broke out be- 
tween the President and Congress over Johnson's veto of the 
Civil Rights Act and other radical measures. In 1867 Con- 
gress prepared openly to take charge of the whole work 
of Reconstruction. The result was the passage (March 2), 
over the President's veto, of the First Reconstruction Act, 
which ( 1 ) practically superseded Johnson's provisional gov- 
ernments, by dividing the late Confederate States into five 
military districts, each under the rule of a general of the 

Thaddeus Stevens. Born in Vermont, 1792; graduated from Dartmouth Col- 
lege, 18U; admitted to Maryland bar, and removed to Gettysburg, Pa., 1816; in 
Pennsylvania legislature, 1833-35, 1837-38, 1841, especially championing the cause 
of common school education; member of the State Constitutional Convention, 
1836, where he labored to secure the franchise for negroes; in Congress 1849-53 
as a Whig, and 1859-08 as a Republican; died, 1868. 

434 



Radical Reconstruction 435 

army, and (2) conditioned the admission of representatives 
in Congress from these States upon the adoption of consti- 
tutions containing negro enfranchisement, disfranchisement 
of the former political leaders of the South, and the adop- 
tion of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The historian Rhodes considers the refusal of Congress 
to adopt the President's policy as due to "the assertion by 
Congress of its prerogative, a disposition on the part of 
the Southern States to claim rights instead of submitting 
to conditions, harsh laws of the Southern legislatures con- 
cerning the freedmen, denial by them of complete civil 
rights and qualified suffrage to the negroes, outrages upon 
the colored people. Southern hatred of Northerners, South- 
ern and Democratic support of the President." (History of 
the United States from 1850, V, p. 5Q5.) 

The unquestioned leader of the radicals in the lower 
house was Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. In spite of 
his seventy-odd years, he was a powerful debater ; and he 
was a true patriot and philanthropist, in spite of his fierce 
and bigoted partisanship. The speech which follows was 
delivered at an early stage of the discussion which led even- 
tually to the passage of the First Reconstruction Act. It 
represents a point of view more radical than that which 
Congress embodied in that measure, or which was generally 
approved by Republicans. It should be noted that the 
main contention of Stevens, — that the States which seceded 
had perished and were now conquered provinces to be ad- 
ministered at pleasure by the conquerors, — -was rejected by 
the United States Supreme Court in 1868 in Texas vs. 
White, the court holding that the States as political organ- 
izations were indestructible, but that their temporary exclu- 
sion from Congress was justifiable under the clause of the 
Constitution which guarantees to every State "a republican 
form of government." 



436 Thaddeus Stevens 

[Thaddeus Stevens, in the U. S. House of Representatives, 
January 3, 1867.] 

MR. Speaker: ... I desire that as early as 
possible, without curtailing, debate, this House 
sliall come to some conclusion as to what shall be 
done with the rebel States. 

Since the surrender of the armies of the Confederate 
States of America a little has been done toward establish- 
ing this government upon the true principles of liberty and 
justice; and but little if we stop liere. We have broken 
the material shackles of four million slaves. We have un- 
chained them from the stake so as to allow them locomotion, 
jjrovided they do not walk in paths which are trod by white 
men. . . . We liave imposed upon them the jorivilege 
of fighting our battles, of dying in defense of freedom, and 
of bearing their equal portion of taxes ; but where have we 
given them the privilege of ever participating in the forma- 
tion of the laws for the government of their native land ? 
Call you this liberty ? . . . Think not I would 
slander my native land; I would reform it. Twenty years 
ago I denounced it as a despotism. Then, twenty million 
white men enchained four million black men. I pronounce 
it no nearer to a true republic now when twenty-five mil- 
lion of a privileged class exclude five million from all par- 
ticipation in the rights of government. 

What are the great questions wliich now divide the na- 
tion.'' In the midst of the political Babel which has been 
produced by the intermingling of secessionists, rebels, par- 
doned traitors, hissing Copperheads, and apostate Republi- 
cans, such a confusion of tongues is heard that it is difficult 
to understand either the questions that are asked or the an- 
swers that are given. Ask, what is the "President's policy?" 
and it is difficult to define it. Ask, what is the "policy of 
Congress?" and the answer is not always at hand. 

A few moments may be profitably spent in seeking the 
meaning of these terms. Nearly six years ago a bloody 
war arose between different sections of the United States. 



Radical Reconstruction 437 

• 

Eleven States, possessing a very large extent of territory, 
and ten or twelve million people, aimed to sever their con- 
nection with the Union, and to form an independent empire, 
founded on the avowed principle of hmnan slavery and 
excluding every free State from this Confederacy. 
On the result of the war depended the fate and ulterior 
condition of the contending parties. No one then pretended 
that the eleven States had any rights under the Constitution 
of the United States, or anj'^ right to interfere in the legis- 
lation of the country. 

The Federal arms triumphed. The Confederate armies 
and government surrendered unconditionally. The law of 
nations then fixed their condition. They were subject to 
the controlling power of the conquerors. No former laws, 
no former compacts or treaties existed to bind the belliger- 
ents. They had all been melted and consumed in the fierce 
fires of the terrible war. The United States, according to 
the usage of nations, ajjpointed military provisional gov- 
ernors to regulate their municipal institutions until the law- 
making power of the conqueror should fix their condition 
and the law by which they should be permanently governed. 
No one then supposed that those States had any 
governments, except such as they had formed under their 
rebel organization. No sane man believed that they had 
any organic municipal laws which the United States were 
bound to respect. Whoever had then asserted that those 
States had remained unfractured, and entitled to all the 
rights and privileges which they enjoyed before the Rebel- 
lion, and were on a level with their loyal conquerors, would 
have been deemed a fool, and would have been found insane 
by any inquisition de lunatico inquirendo. 

In monarchical governments, where the sovereign power 
rests in the Crown, the king would have fixed the condition 
of the conquered provinces. He might have extended the 
laws of this empire over them, allowed them to retain por- 
tions of their old institutions, or, by conditions of peace, 
have fixed upon them new and exceptional laws. 



438 



Thaddeus Stevens 



In this country the whole sovereignty rests with the peo- 
ple, and is exercised through their representatives in Con- 
gress assembled. The legislative power is the sole guardian 
of that sovereignty. No other branch of the government, 
no other department, no other officer of the government, 
possesses one single particle of the sovereignty of the na- 
tion. No government official, from the President and Chief 
Justice down, can do any one act which is not prescribed 
and directed by the legislative power. Suppose the gov- 
ernment were now to be organized for the first time under 
the Constitution, and the President had been elected and 
the judiciary appointed: what could either do until Con- 
gress passed laws to regulate their proceedings.^ 

What power would the President have over any one sub- 
ject of government until Congress had legislated on that 
subject? . . . The President could not even create bu- 
reaus or Departments to facilitate his executive operations. 
He must ask leave of Congress. Since, then, the President 
can not enact, alter, or modify a single law; can not even 
create a petty office within his own sphere of duties ; if, in 
short, he is the mere servant of the people, who issue their 
commands to him through Congress, whence does he de- 
rive the constitutional power to create new States ; to re- 
model old ones ; to dictate organic laws ; to fix the qualifica- 
tions of voters ; to declare that States are republican and 
entitled to command Congress to admit their representa- 
tives .'' To my mind it is either the most ignorant and shal- 
low mistake of his duties, or the most brazen and impudent 
usurpation of power. It is claimed for him by some as the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. How absurd 
that a mere executive officer should claim creative powers ! 
Though Commander-in-Chief by the Constitution, he would 
have nothing to command, either by land or water, until 
Congress raised both Army and Navy. Congress prescribes 
the rules and regulations to govern the Army. Even that is 
not left to the Commander-in-Chief. 

Though the President is Commander-in-Chief, Congress 



Radical Reconstruction 439 

is his commander ; and, God willing, he shall obey. He and 
his minions shall learn that this is not a government of 
kings and satraps, but a government of the people, and that 
Congress is the people. 

To reconstruct the nation, to admit new States, to guar- 
anty republican governments to old States, are all legisla- 
tive acts. The President claims the right to exercise them. 
Congress denies it and asserts the right to belong to the leg- 
islative branch. They have determined to defend these 
rights against all usurpers. They have determined that 
while in their keeping the Constitution shall not be violated 
with impunity. This I take to be the great question between 
the President and Congress. He claims the right to recon- 
struct by his own power. Congress denies him all power in 
the matter, except those of advice, and has determined to 
maintain such denial. "My [Johnson's] policy" asserts full 
power in the Executive. The policy of Congress forbids 
him to exercise any power therein. 

Beyond this I do not agree that the "policy" of the par- 
ties is defined. To be sure many subordinate items of the 
policy of each may be easily sketched. . . . He de- 
sires that the traitors (having sternly executed that most 
important leader. Rickety Wirz*, as a liigh example) 
should be exempt from further fine, imprisonment, forfei- 
ture, exile, or capital punishment, and be declared entitled 
to all the rights of loyal citizens. He desires that the States 
created by him shall be acknowledged as valid States, while 
at the same time he inconsistently declares that the old rebel 
States are in full existence, and always have been, and have 
equal rights with the loyal States. He opposes the amend- 
ment [the Fourteenth] to the Constitution which changes 
the base of representation, and desires the old slave States 
to have the benefit of their increase of freemen without in- 
creasing the number of votes ; in short, he desires to make 

*Major Henry Wirz, Commander of the Confederate military prison at An- 
dersonville, who was held responsible for the atrocities committed on Federal 
prisoners there. 



440 Thaddeus Stevens 

the vote of one rebel in South Carolina equal to the vote of 
three freemen in Pennsylvania or New York. He is deter- 
mined to force a solid rebel delegation into Congress from 
the South, and together with Northern Copperheads, could 
at once control Congress and elect all future Presidents. 

In opposition to these things, a portion of Congress seems 
to desire that the conquered belligerent shall, according to 
the law of nations, pay at least a part of the expenses and 
damages of the war; and that especially the loyal people 
who were plundered and impoverished by rebel raiders 
shall be ftilly indemnified. A majority of Congress desires 
that "treason shall be made odious," not by bloody execu- 
tions, but by other adequate jjunishments. 

Congress refuses to treat the States created by him as of 
any validity, and denies that the old rebel States have any 
existence which gives them any rights under the Constitu- 
tion. Congress insists on changing the basis of representa- 
tion so as to put white voters on an equality in both sections, 
and that such change shall precede the admission of any 
State. . . . Congress denies that any State lately in 
rebellion has any government or constitution known to the 
Constitution of the United States, or which can be recog- 
nized as a part of the Union. How, then, can such a State 
adopt the amendment.^ To allow it would be yielding the 
whole question and admitting the unimpaired rights of the 
seceded States. I know of no Republican who does not ridi- 
cule what Mr. Seward thought a cunning movement, in 
counting Virginia and other outlawed States among those 
which had adopted the constitutional amendment abolishing 
slavery. 

It is to be regretted that inconsiderate and incautious Re- 
publicans should ever have supposed that the slight amend- 
ments already proposed to the Constitution, even when in- 
corporated into that instrument, would satisfy the reforms 
necessary for the security of the government. Unless the 
rebel States, before admission, should be made republican 
in spirit, and placed under the guardianship of loyal men, 



Radical Reconstruction 441 

all our blood and treasure will have been spent in vain. I 
waive now the question of punisliment which, if we are wise, 
will still be inflicted by moderate confiscations, both as a re- 
proof and example. Having these States, as we all agree, 
entirely within the power of Congress, it is our duty to take 
care that no injustice shall remain in their organic laws. 
Holding them "like clay in the hands of the potter," we 
must see that no vessel is made for destruction. Having now 
no governments, they must have enabling acts. The law of 
the last session with regard to Territories settled the princi- 
ples of such acts. Impartial suff'rage, both in electing the 
delegates and ratifying their proceedings, is now the fixed 
rule. There is more reason why colored voters should be 
admitted in the rebel States than in the Territories. In the 
States they form the great mass of the loyal men. Possibly 
with their aid loyal governments may be established in most 
of these States. Without it all are sure to be ruled by trai- 
tors ; and loyal men, black and white, will be oppressed, ex- 
iled, or murdered. There are several good reasons for the 
passage of this bill. In the first place, it is just. I am now 
confining my argument to negro suffrage in the rebel States. 
Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers 
and make laws as rebel whites.^ In the second place, it is 
a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in the 
seceded States. The white Union men are in a great minor- 
ity in each of those States. With them the blacks would act 
in a body; and it is believed that in each of said States, ex- 
cept one, the two united would form a majority, control the 
States, and protect themselves. Now they are the victims 
of daily murder. They must suffer constant persecution or 
be exiled. The convention of southern loyalists, lately held 
in Philadelphia, almost unanimously agreed to such a bill 
as an absolute necessity. 

Another good reason is, it would insure the ascendency of 
the Union [Republican] party. Do you avow the party 
purpose.^ exclaims some horror-stricken demagogue. I do. 
For I believe, on my conscience, that on the continued as- 



442 Thaddeus Stevens 

cendency of that party depends the safety of this nation. If 
impartial suffrage is excluded in the rebel States, then every 
one of them is sure to send a solid rebel representative dele- 
gation to Congress, and cast a solid rebel electoral vote. 
They, with their kindred Copperheads of the North, would 
always elect the President and control Congress. While 
slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimi- 
dated the trembling North, the South frequently divided on 
questions of policy between Whigs and Democrats, and gave 
victory alternately to the sections. Now, you must divide 
them between loyalists, without regard to color, and disloy- 
alists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the free-trade, 
irritated, revengeful South. For these, among other rea- 
sons, I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be 
just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be 
adopted ; if it be punishment to traitors, they deserve it. 

But it will be said, as it has been said, "This is negro 
equality !" What is negro equality, about which so much is 
said by knaves, and some of which is believed by men who 
are not fools ? It means, as understood by honest Republi- 
cans, just this much, and no more: every man, no matter 
what his race or color, — every earthly being who has an 
immortal soul, — has an equal right to justice, honesty, and 
fair play with every other man; and the law should secure 
him those rights. The same law which condemns or acquits 
an African should condemn or acquit a white man. The 
same law which gives a verdict in a white man's favor should 
give a verdict in a black man's favor on the same state of 
facts. Such is the law of God and such ought to be the law 
of man. This doctrine does not mean that a negro shall sit 
on the same seat or eat at the same table with a white man. 
That is a matter of taste which every man must decide for 
himself. The law has nothing to do with it. . . . 



31. BENJAMIN R. CURTIS, of Massachusetts.— DE- 
FENSE OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON 

(Delivered before the Senate of the United States sitting as a Court 
of Impeachment, April 9 and 10, 1868. ) 

After more than a year of investigations, discussions, 
and motions pro and con, the House of Representatives, 
on February 24, 1868, voted (128 Republicans to 47 Demo- 
crats) to impeach President Johnson of various "high 
crimes and misdemeanors," which are specified in the eleven 
articles adopted March 2d and 3d. The nature of the 
several charges against the President will be evident from 
the speech in his defense given below. It may be said that 
the decisive factor in leading Congress to take this action 
was Johnson's attempt (August 5, 1867) to remove Stanton 
from the office of Secretary of War in defiance of a Tenure 
of Office Act passed by Congress over his veto March 2, 
1867. The impeachment trial began March 30, with Chief 
Justice Chase presiding, and continued until May 12th. 
The first article to be voted on was the eleventh (May 
l6th), when 35 Senators voted for conviction and 19 for 
acquittal. On May 26th the second and third articles were 
voted on, with the same result. Judgment of acquittal was 
entered on these three articles, and the prosecution was 
then abandoned. All of the votes for conviction were cast 
by Republican Senators, while seven Senators of that party, 

Benjamin Robbins Curtis. Born in Massachusetts. 1809; graduated from Har- 
vard College, 18'29: admitted to the Massachusetts bar, 1832: appointed to the 
United States Supreme Court, 18.51: delivered dissenting opinion in the Dred- 
Scott case; resigned, 1857; Democratic candidate for U. S. Senate, 1874: died, 187-1. 

443 



444 Benjamin R. Curtis 

in spite of strong party pressure, voted for acquittal. A 
change of but one vote would have produced the necessary 
two-thirds majority, and removed the President from office. 
The strongest argument on the President's side was made 
by Benjamin R. Curtis, who as a justice of the Supreme 
Court had given one of the two dissenting opinions in the 
Dred Scott case in 1857. "A man of scrupulous honor, he 
loved his profession for its conservatism and moral power; 
he had no use for its tricks. . . . He had been a judge 
of the school of Marshall and Story, and it was a loss to 
the country when he resigned the position of justice of 
the United States Supreme Court. But in these two argu- 
ments as advocate, he rendered his country as noteworthy 
service as in 1857, when he dissented from Taney in the 
Dred Scott case." (Rhodes, History of the United States 
from 1850, VI, 120-1.) Curtis spoke in all for five hours; 
he did not read his speech, as did Benjamin F. Butler in 
opening for the prosecution, but did refer to copious notes 
and authorities. He prett}^ nearly demolished the legal case 
against the President; and William S. Groesbeck and Wil- 
liam M. Evarts, who were associated with him, completed 
what he left undone. The ablest speech for the prosecution 
was delivered by Thaddeus Stevens, but this was not to be 
compared, in mastery of the law and solidity of reasoning, 
with the speeches delivered for the defense. 

[Benjamin R. Curtis, before the Court of Impeachment, April 9 and 10, 1868.] 

MR. Chief Justice : I am here to speak to the Senate 
of the United States sitting in its judicial capacity 
as a court of impeachment, presided over by the 
Chief Justice of the United States, for the trial of the 
President of the United States. This statement sufficiently 
characterizes what I have to say. Here party spirit, politi- 
cal schemes, foregone conclusions, outrageous biases can 



Impeachment of Johnson 445 

have no fit operation. The Constitution requires that there 
should be a "trial"; and^ as in that trial the oath which each 
one of you has taken is to administer "impartial justice ac- 
cording to the Constitution and the laws/' the only appeal 
which I can make in behalf of the President is an appeal to 
the conscience and the reason of each judge who sits before 
me. Upon the law and the facts, upon the judicial merits 
of the case, ujjon the duties incumbent on that high officer 
by virtue of his office, and his honest endeavor to discharge 
those duties, the President rests his defense. And I pray 
each one of you to listen to me with that patience which be- 
longs to a judge for his own sake, which I can not expect 
to command by any efforts of mine, while I open to you 
what that defense is. . . . 

I shall make no apology. Senators, for asking your close 
attention to these articles, one after the other, in manner 
and form as they are here presented, to ascertain in the 
first place what are the substantial allegations in each of 
them, what is the legal operation and effect of those allega- 
tions, and what proof is necessary to be adduced in order to 
sustain them ; and I shall begin with the first, not merely 
because the House of Representatives, in arranging these 
articles, have placed that first in order, but because the sub- 
ject-matter of that article is of such a character that it 
forms the foundation of the first eight articles in the series, 
and enters materially into two of the remaining three. 

Stripped of that verbiage, it amounts exactly to 
these things ; first, that the order set out in the article for 
the removal of Mr. Stanton, if executed, would be a viola- 
tion of the tenure-of-office act; second, that it was a violation 
of the tenure-of-office act; third, that it was an intentional 
violation of the tenure-of-office act; fourth, that it was a 
violation of the Constitution of the United States; and, fifth, 
was by the President intended to be so. Or, to draw all this 
into one sentence which yet may be intelligible and clear 
enough, I suppose the substance of this first article is that 
the order for the removal of ^Ir. Stanton was, and was in- 



44^ Benjamin R. Curtis 

tended to be, a violation of the Constitution of the United 
States. These are the allegations which it is necessary for 
the honorable managers to make out in proof, to support 
that article. 

Now, there is a question involved here which enters 
deeply, as I have already intimated, into the first eight arti- 
cles in this series, and materially touches two of the others; 
and to that question I desire in the first place to invite the 
attention of the court. That question is whether JNIr. Stan- 
ton's case comes under the tenure-of-office act. If it does 
not,— if the true construction and effect of the tenure-of- 
office act, when applied to the facts of his case, exclude it, — 
then it will be found by honorable Senators, when they come 
to examine this and the other articles, that a mortal wound 
has been inflicted upon them by that decision. I must there- 
fore ask your attention to the construction and application 
of the first section of the tenure-of-office act. It is, as Sen- 
ators know, but dry work: it requires close, careful attention 
and reflection ; no doubt it w^ill receive them. Allow me, in 
the first place, to read that section: 

"That every person holding any civil office to which he 
has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be ap- 
pointed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified 
to act therein, is and shall be entitled to hold such office until 
a successor shall have been in a like manner appointed and 
duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided." 

Then comes what is "otherwise provided": 

"Provided, That the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, 
of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster- 
General, and the Attorney-General, shall hold their offices 
respectively for and during the term of the President by 
whom they may have been appointed, and for one month 
thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate." 

The first inquiry which arises on this language is as to 



Impeachment of Johnson 447 

the meaning of the words "for and during the term of the 
President." Mr. Stanton, as appears by the commission 
which has been put into the case by the honorable managers, 
was appointed in January, 1862, during the first term of 
President Lincoln. Are these words, "during the term of 
the President," applicable to Mr. Stanton's case? That de- 
pends upon whether an expounder of this law judicially, 
who finds set down in it as a part of the descriptive words 
"during the term of the President," has any right to add 
"and any other term for which he may afterward be 
elected." By what authority short of legislative power can 
those words be jDut into the statute, so that "during the term 
of the President" shall be held to mean "and any other term 
or terms for which the President may be elected"? I re- 
spectfully submit no such judicial interpretation can be put 
on the words. 

Then, if you please, take the next step. "During the 
term of the President by whom he was appointed." At the 
time when this order was issued for the removal of Mr. 
Stanton, was he holding "during the term of the President 
by whom he was appointed" ? The honorable managers say 
yes, because, as they say, Mr. Johnson is merely serving out 
the residue of Mr. Lincoln's term. But is that so under the 
provisions of the Constitution of the United States ? . . . 
The limit of four years [for the presidential 
term] is not an absolute limit. Death is a limit. A "condi- 
tional limitation," as the lawyers call it, is imposed on his 
tenure of office. And when . . . the President dies, his 
term of four years for which he was elected, and during 
which he was to hold, provided he should so long live, termi- 
nates, and the office devolves on the Vice-President. For 
what period of time? For the remainder of the term for 
which the Vice-President was elected. And there is no more 
propriety, under these provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States, in calling the time during which Mr. John- 
son holds the office of President, after it was devolved upon 
him, a part of Mr. Lincoln's term, than there would be pro- 



448 Benjamin R. Curtis 

priety in saying that one sovereign who succeeded to an- 
other sovereign by death holds a part of his predecessor's 
term. The term assigned to Mr. Lincohi by the Constitu- 
tion was conditionally assigned to him. It was to last four 
years, if not sooner ended; but, if sooner ended by his 
death, then the office devolved on the Vice-President, and 
the term of the Vice-President to hold the office then began. 

I submit then, that upon this language of the act it is 
apparent that Mr. Stanton's case can not be considered as 
within it. This law, however, as Senators very well know, 
had a purpose: there was a practical object in the view of 
Congress ; and, however clear it might seem that the lan- 
guage of tlie law when applied to ^Ir. Stanton's case would 
exclude that case, however clear it might seem on the mere 
words of the law, if the purpose of the law could be dis- 
cerned, and that purpose plainly required a different inter- 
pretation, that different interpretation should be given. 
But, on the other hand, if the purpose in view was one re- 
quiring that interpretation to which I have been drawing 
your attention, then it greatly strengthens the argument; 
because not only the language of the act itself, but the 
practical object which the legislature had in view in using 
that language, demands that interpretation. 

Now, there can be no dispute concerning what that pur- 
pose was, as I suppose. Here is a peculiar class of officers 
singled out from all others and brought within this provi- 
sion. Why is this ? It is because the Constitution has pro- 
vided that these principal officers in the several executive 
departments may be called upon by the President for advice 
"respecting" — for that is the language of the Constitution 
— "their several duties"; not, as I read the Constitution, 
that he may call upon the Secretary of War for advice con- 
cerning questions arising in the Department of War. He 
may call upon him for advice concerning questions which 
are a part of the duty of the President, as well as questions 
which belong only to the Department of War. 

The Constitution undoubtedly contemplated that there 



Impeachment of Johnson 449 

should be executive departments created, the heads of which 
were to assist the President in the administration of the laws 
as well as by their advice. They were to be the hands and 
the voice of the President ; and accordingly that has been so 
practiced from the beginning, and the legislation of Con- 
gress has been framed on this assumption in the organization 
of the departments, and emphatically in the act which con- 
stituted the Department of War. That provides, as Sena- 
tors well remember, in so many words, that the Secretary of 
War is to discharge such duties of a general description 
there given as shall be assigned to him by the President, and 
that he is to perform them under the President's instructions 
and directions. 

Let me repeat that the Secretary of War and the other 
Secretaries, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-Gen- 
eral, are deemed to be the assistants of the President in the 
performance of his great duty to take care that the laws are 
faithfully executed ; that they speak for and act for him. 
Now, do not these two views furnish the reasons why 
this class of officers was excepted out of the law? They 
were to be the advisers of the President ; they were to 
be the immediate confidential assistants of the President, 
for whom he was to be responsible, but in whom he was ex- 
pected to repose a great amount of trust and confidence; 
and therefore it was that this act has connected the tenure 
of office of these Secretaries to which it applies with the 
President by whom they were appointed. It says, in the de- 
scription which the act gives of the future tenure of office 
of Secretaries, that a controlling regard is to be had to the 
fact that the Secretary whose tenure is to be regulated was 
appointed by some particular President, and during the 
term of that President he shall continue to hold his office ; 
but as for Secretaries who are in office, not appointed by the 
President, we have nothing to say: we leave them as they 
heretofore have been. I submit to Senators that this is the 
natural, and, having regard to the character of these officers, 
the necessarv conclusion : that the tenure of office of a Sec- 



450 Benjamin R. Curtis 

retary here described is a tenure during the term of service 
of the President by whom he was appointed ; that it was not 
the intention of Congress to compel a President of the 
United States to continue in office a Secretary not appointed 
by himself. 

We have, however, fortunately, not only the means of in- 
terpreting this law which I have alluded to, — namely, the 
language of the act, the evident character and purpose of 
the act, — but we have decisive evidence of what was in- 
tended and understood to be the meaning and effect of this 
law in each branch of Congress at the time when it was 
passed. ... In this body [the Senate] , as I have said, a 
considerable debate sprang up. ... I think the whole 
of it may fairly be summed up in this statement : that it was 
charged by one of the honorable Senators from Wisconsin 
that it was the intention of those who favored this bill to 
keep in office Mr. Stanton and certain other Secretaries. 
That was directly met by the honorable Senator from Ohio 
— one of the members of the committee of conference — by 
this statement: 

". . . . We do not legislate in order to keep in the 
Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the Secre- 
tary of State. . . 

"That the Senate had no such purpose is shown by its 
vote twice to make this exception. That this provision does 
not apply to the present case is shown by the fact that its 
language is so framed as not to apply to the present Presi- 
dent. The Senator shows that himself, and argues truly 
that it would not prevent the present President from remov- 
ing the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and 
the Secretary of State. And if I supposed that either of 
these gentlemen was so wanting in manhood, in honor, as 
to hold his place after the politest intimation by the Presi- 
dent of the United States that his services were no longer 
needed, I certainly, as a Senator, would consent to his re- 
moval at any time, and so would we all." 



Impeachment of Johnson 451 

And now I ask the Senate — looking at the lan- 
guage of this law^ looking at its purpose, looking at the cir- 
cumstances under which it was jiassed, the meaning thus at- 
tached to it by each of the bodies which consented to it — 
whether it is possible to hold that Mr. Stanton's case is 
within the scope of that tenure-of-office act? I submit it is 
not possible. 

But this article, as Senators will perceive on looking at 
it, does not allege simply that the order for the removal of 
Mr. Stanton was a violation of the tenure-of-office act. The 
honorable House of Representatives have not, by this article, 
attempted to erect a mistake into a crime. I have been ar- 
guing to you at considerable length, no doubt trying your 
patience thereby,the construction of that tenure-of-office law. 
I have a clear idea of what its construction ought to be. 
Senators, more or less of them who have listened to me, 
may have a different view of its construction ; but I think 
they will in all candor admit that there is a question of con- 
struction: there is a question of what the meaning of this 
law was, — a question whether it was applicable to Mr. 
Stanton's case, — a very honest and solid question which any 
man could entertain ; and therefore, I rejjeat, it is important 
to observe that the honorable House of Representatives have 
not, by this article, endeavored to charge the President with 
a high misdemeanor because he had been honestly mistaken 
in construing that law. They go further, and take the nec- 
essary step. They charge him with intentionally miscon- 
struing it: they say, "Which order was unlawfully issued 
with intention then and there to violate said act." So that, 
in order to maintain the substance of this article, without 
which it was not designed by the House of Representatives 
to stand, and can not stand, it is necessary for them to show 
that the President wilfully misconstrued this law ; that hav- 
ing reason to believe, and actually believing, after the use 
of due inquiry, that Mr. Stanton's case was within the law, 



452 Benjamin R. Curtis 

he acted as if it was not within tlie law. That is the sub- 
stance of the charge. 

What of the proof in support of that allegation offered 
by the honorable managers ? Senators must undoubtedly be 
familiar with the fact that the office of President of the 
United States, as well as many other executive offices, and 
to some extent legislative offices, call upon those who hold 
them for tlie exercise of judgment and skill in the construc- 
tion and application of laws. It is true that the strictly 
judicial power of the country, technically speaking, is 
vested in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as 
Congress from time to time have established or may estab- 
lish. But there is a great mass of work to be performed by 
executive officers in the discharge of their duties, which is of 
a judicial character. Take, for instance, all that is done in 
the auditing of accounts: that is judicial, whether it be 
done by an auditor or a comptroller, or whether it be done 
by a chancellor; and the work has the same character, 
whether done by one or by the other. They must construe 
and apply the laws ; they must investigate and ascertain 
facts ; they must come to some results compounded of the 
law and of the facts. 

Now, this class of duties the President of the United 
States has to perform. A case is brought before him, which, 
in his judgment, calls for action: his first inquiry must be, 
What is the law on the subject.^ He encounters, among 
other things, this tenure-of-office law in the course of his 
inquiry. His first duty is to construe that law ; to see 
whether it applies to the case ; to use, of course, in doing so, 
all those means and appliances which the Constitution and 
the laws of the country have put into his hands to enable 
him to come to a correct decision. But, after all, he must 
decide in order either to act or to refrain from action. 

That process the President in this case was obliged to go 
through, and did go through ; and he came to the conclusion 
that the case of Mr. Stanton was not within this law. He 
came to that conclusion, not merely by an examination of 



Impeachment of Johnson 453 

this law himself, but by resorting to the advice which the 
Constitution and laws of the country enable him to call for 
to assist him in coming to a correct conclusion. Having 
done so, are the Senate prepared to say that the conclusion 
he reached must have been a wilful misconstruction, — so 
wilful, so wrong, that it can justly and properly, and for 
the purpose of this prosecution, effectively be termed a high 
misdemeanor ? How does the law read ? What are its pur- 
poses and obj ects ? How was it understood here at the tiii]e 
when it was passed? How is it possible for this body to 
convict the President of the United States of a high misde- 
meanor for construing a law as those who made it construed 
it at the time when it was made? 

I have now gone over, Senators, the considerations which 
seem to me to be applicable to the tenure-of-office bill, and 
to this allegation which is made that the President know- 
ingly violated the Constitution of the United States in the 
order for the removal of Mr. Stanton from office while the 
Senate was in session; and the counsel for the President 
feel that it is not essential to his vindication from this 
charge to go further upon this subject. Nevertheless, there 
is a broader view upon this matter which is an actual part 
of the case — and it is due to the President it should be 
brought before you — that I now propose to open to your 
consideration. 

The Constitution requires the President to take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed. It also requires him, as a 
qualification for his office, to swear that he will faithfully 
execute the laws, and that, to the best of his ability, he will 
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
States. I suppose every one will agree that, so long as the 
President of the United States, in good faith, is endeavor- 
ing to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and in 
good faith, and to the best of his ability is preserving, pro- 
tecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States, 



454 Benjamin R. Curtis 

although he may be making mistakes, he is not committing 
high crimes or misdemeanors. 

In the execution of these duties, the President found, for 
reasons which it is not my province at this time to enter 
upon, but which will be exhibited to you hereafter, that it 
was impossible to allow Mr. Stanton to continue to hold the 
office of one of his advisers, and to be responsible for his 
conduct in the manner he was required by the Constitution 
ajid laAvs to be responsible, any longer. This was intimated 
to Mr. Stanton, and did not produce the effect which, ac- 
cording to the general judgment of well-informed men, such 
intimations usually produce. ThereuiJon, the President first 
suspended Mr. Stanton, and reported that to the Senate. 
Certain proceedings took place, which will be adverted to 
more particularly presently. They resulted in the return 
of Mr. Stanton to the occupation by him of his office. Then 
it became necessary for the President to consider, first, 
whether this tenure-of-office law applied to the case of Mr. 
Stanton ; secondly, if it did apply to the case of Mr. Stan- 
ton, whether the law itself was the law of the land, or was 
merely inoperative because it exceeded the constitutional 
power of the legislature. 

I am aware that it is asserted to be the civil and moral 
duty of all men to obey those laws which have been passed 
through all the forms of legislation, until they shall have 
been decreed by judicial authority not to be binding; but 
this is too broad a statement of the civil and moral duty in- 
cumbent either upon private citizens or public officers. If 
this is the measure of duty, there never could be a judicial 
decision that a law is unconstitutional, inasmuch as it is 
only by disregarding a law that any question can be raised 
judicially under it. I submit to Senators that not only is 
there no such rule of civil or moral duty, but that it may be 
and has been a high and patriotic duty of a citizen to raise 
a question whether a law is within the constitution of the 
country. Will any man question the patriotism or the pro- 
priety of John Hampden's act, when he brought the ques- 



Impeachment of Johnson 455 

tion [decided in 1637] whether "ship money" was within 
the constitution of England before the courts of England? 
Not only is there no such rule incumbent upon the private 
citizens which forbids them to raise such questions, but, let 
me repeat, there may be, as there not un frequently have 
been, instances in which the highest patriotism and the 
purest civil and moral duty, require it to be done. Let me 
ask any of you, if you were a trustee for the rights of third 
persons, and those rights of third persons, which they could 
not defend themselves by reason perhaps of sex or age, 
should be attacked by an unconstitutional law, should you 
not deem it to be your sacred duty to resist it, and have the 
question tried? And if a private trustee may be subject to 
such duty, and impelled by it to such action, how is it pos- 
sible to maintain that he who is a trustee for the people of 
powers confided to him for their protection, for their se- 
curity, for their benefit, may not in that character of trustee 
defend what has thu^ been confided to him ? 

Do not let me be misunderstood on this subject. I am not 
intending to advance upon or occupy any extreme ground, 
because no such extreme ground has been advanced upon or 
occupied by the President of the United States. He is to 
take care that the laws are faithfully executed. When a 
law has been passed through the forms of legislation, either 
with his assent or without his assent, it is his duty to see that 
that law is faithfully executed, so long as nothing is required 
of him but ministerial action. He is not to erect himself into 
a judicial court, and decide that the law is unconstitutional, 
and that therefore he will not execute it; for, if that were 
done, manifestly there never could be a judicial decision. 
He would not only veto a law, but he would refuse all action 
under the law after it had been passed, and thus prevent 
any judicial decision from being made. He [President 
Johnson] asserts no such jwwer. He has no such idea of 
his duty. His idea of his dut}^ is that, if a law is passed 
over his veto which he believes to be unconstitutional, and 
that law affects the interests of third persons, those whose 



45^ Benjamin R. Curtis 

interests are affected must take care of them, vindicate 
them, raise questions concerning them, if they should be so 
advised. If such a law affects the general and public inter- 
ests of the people, the people must take care at the polls 
that it is remedied in a constitutional way. 

But when, Senators, a question arises whether a particular 
law has cut off a poM'er confided to him by the people, 
through the Constitution, and he alone can raise that ques- 
tion, and he alone can cause a judicial decision to come be- 
tween the two branches of the government to say which of 
them is right, and after due deliberation, with the advice 
of those who are his proper advisers, he settles down firmly 
upon the opinion that such is the character of the law, it 
remains to be decided by you whether there is any violation 
of his duty when he takes the needful steps to raise that 
question and have it peacefully decided. 

Where shall the line be drawn ? Suppose a law should 
provide that the President of the United States should not 
make a treaty with England or with any other country. It 
would be a plain infraction of his constitutional power; and, 
if an occasion arose when such a treaty was in his judgment 
expedient and necessary, it would be his duty to make it; 
and the fact that it should be declared to be a high misde- 
meanor, if he made it, would no more relieve him from the 
responsibility of acting through the fear of that law than 
he would be relieved of that responsibility by a bribe not to 
act. 

Suppose a law that he shall not be Commander-in-Chief 
in part or in whole, — a plain case, I will suppose, of an 
infraction of that provision of the Constitution which has 
confided to him that command, the Constitution intending 
that the head of all the military power of the country should 
be a civil magistrate, to the end that the law may always be 
superior to arms. Suppose he should resist a statute of that 
kind, in the manner I have spoken of, by bringing it to a 
judicial decision? 

It may be said these are plain cases of express infrac- 



Impeachment of Johnson 457 

tions of the Constitution ; but what is the difference between 
a power conferred upon the President by the express words 
of the Constitution, and a power conferred upon the Presi- 
dent by a clear and sufficient implication in the Constitution ? 
Where does the power to make hanks come from ? Where 
does the power come from to limit Congress in assigning 
original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, — one of the cases referred to the other day? Where 
do a multitude of powers upon which Congress acts come 
from, in the Constitution, except by fair implications? 
Whence do you derive the power, while you are limiting the 
tenure of office, to confer on the Senate the right to prevent 
removals without their consent? Is that expressly given in 
the Constitution, or is it an im]jlication which is made from 
some of its provisions ? 

I submit it is impossible to draw any line of duty for the 
President simply because a power is derived from an im- 
plication in the Constitution, instead of from an express 
provision. One thing unquestionably is to be expected of 
the President on all such occasions : that is, that he should 
carefully consider the. question ; that he should ascertain 
that it necessarily arises ; that he should be of the opinion 
that it is necessar}'^ to the public service that it should be 
decided; that he should take all competent and proper ad- 
vice on the subject. When he has done all this, if he finds 
that he can not allow the law to operate in the particular 
case without abandoning a power which he believes has 
been confided to him by the people, it is his solemn convic- 
tion that it is his duty to assert the power and obtain a judi- 
cial decision thereon. And although he does not perceive. 
nor do his counsel perceive, that it is essential to his de- 
fense in this case to maintain this part of the argument, 
nevertheless, if this tribunal should be of that opinion, then 
before this tribunal, before all the people of the United 
States, and before the civilized world, he asserts the truth 
of this position. 

I am compelled now to ask your attention, quite briefly 



458 Benjamin R. Curtis 

however, to some considerations which weighed upon the 
mind of the President, and led him to the conchision that 
this was one of the powers of his office which it was his 
duty, in the manner I have indicated, to endeavor to pre- 
serve. 

The question whether the Constitution has lodged the 
power of removal with the President alone, with the Presi- 
dent and Senate, or left it to Congress to be determined at 
its will in fixing the tenure of offices, was, as all Senators 
know, debated in 1789 with surpassing ability and knowl- 
edge of the frame and necessities of our government. 

Now, it is a rule long settled, existing I suppose in all 
civilized countries, certainly in every system of law that I 
have any acquaintance with, that a contemporary exposition 
of a law, made by those who were competent to give it a 
construction, is of very great weight; and that when such 
contemporary exposition has been made of a law, and it has 
been followed by an actual and practical construction in ac- 
cordance with that contemporary exposition, continued dur- 
ing a long period of time and apjilied to great numbers of 
cases, it is afterward too late to call in question the correct- 
ness of such a construction. 

[Mr. Curtis then showed that Congress in 1789, after 
mature consideration, had decided that the power to remove 
was vested exclusively in the President, and that this view 
had been upheld, for a half century since, by the Supreme 
Court of the United States.] 

Now I ask Senators to consider whether, for having 
formed an opinion that the Constitution of the United States 
had Jodged this power with the President, — an opinion which 
he shares with every President who has preceded him, witli 
every Congress which has preceded the last; an opinion 
formed on the grounds which I have imperfectly indicated ; 
an opinion which, when applied to this particular case, 
raises the difficulties which T have indicated here, arising 
out of the fact that tliis law does not pursue either of the 
opinions which were originally held in this government, 



Impeachment of Johnson 459 

and have occasionally been started and maintained by those 
who are restless under its administration ; an opinion tluis 
supported by the practice of the government from its origin 
down to his own day, — is he to be impeached for holding 
that opinion? If not, if he might honestly and properly 
form such an opinion under the lights which he had, and 
with the aid of the advice which we shall show you he re- 
ceived, then is he to be impeached for acting upon it to the 
extent of obtaining a judicial decision whether the execu- 
tive department of the goveimment was right in its opin- 
ion, or the legislative department was right in its opinion ? 
Strangely enough, as it struck me, the honorable managers 
themselves say, "No; he is not to be impeached for that." 

So it seems that it is, after all, not the removal of Tslr. 
Stanton, but the manner in which the President communi- 
cated the fact of that removal to the Senate after it was 
made. Tliat manner is here called the "defiant message" 
of the 21st of February. That is a question of taste. I 
have read the message, as you all have read it. If you can 
find anything in it that is not decorous and respectful to 
this body and to all concerned your taste will differ from 
mine. But, whether it be a point of manners well or ill 
taken, one thing seems to be quite clear: that the President 
is not impeached here because he entertained an opinion 
that this law was unconstitutional; he is not impeached here 
because he acted on that opinion and removed ^Ir. Stanton; 
but he is impeached here because the House of Representa- 
tives considers that this honorable body was addressed by 
a "defiant message," when they should have been addresed 
in the terms which the honorable manager has dictated. 

[jNIr. Curtis next considered successively the second arti- 
cle, dealing with the commissioning of General Thomas as 
acting Secretary of War; the eighth article, which "differs 
from the second only in one particular" ; the third, which con- 
cerned the same matter; the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, 
which he styled "the conspiracy articles, because they rest 



460 Benjamin R. Curtis 

upon charges of conspiracy between the President and Gen- 
eral Thomas"; and the ninth, which dealt with a conversa- 
tion between the President and General Emory.] 

I pass, then, from this article, as being one upon which 
I ought not to detain the Senate; and I come to the last one, 
concerning which I shall have much to say, and that is the 
tenth article, which is all of and concerning the speeches 
of the President. 

In the front of this inquiry, the question presents itself: 
What are impeachable oifenses under the Constitution of 
the United States ? Upon this question, learned disserta- 
tions have been written and printed. One of them is an- 
nexed to the argument of the honorable manager who 
opened for the prosecution. Another one, on the other side 
of the question, written by one of the honorable managers 
themselves, may be found annexed to the proceedings in 
the House of Representatives upon the occasion of the first 
attempt to impeach the President. And there have been 
others written and published by learned jurists touching 
this subject. I do not propose to vex the ear of the Senate 
with any of the precedents drawn from the ^Middle Ages. 
The framers of our Constitution were quite as familiar with 
them as the learned authors of these treatises ; and the 
framers of our Constitution, as I conceive, have drawn from 
them the lesson which I desire the Senate to receive, that 
these precedents are not tit to govern their conduct on this 
trial. 

In my apprehension, the teachings, the requirements, the 
prohibitions of the Constitution of the United States, prove 
all that is necessary to be attended to for the purposes of 
this trial. I propose, therefore, instead of a search through 
the precedents which were made in the times of the Plan- 
tagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, and which have been 
repeated since, to come nearer home and see what provisions 
of the Constitution of the United States bear on this ques- 
tion, and whether they are not sufficient to settle it. If 
they are, it is quite immaterial what exists elsewhere. 



Impeachment of Johnson 461 

My first position is that, when tlie Constitution speaks of 
"treason, bribery, and other liigh crimes and misdemeanors/' 
it refers to, and includes only, high criminal offenses against 
the United States, made so by some law of the United States 
existing when the acts comjilained of were done; and I say 
that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every 
provision of the Constitution on the subject of impeachment. 

"Treason" and "briber}'." Nobody will doubt that these are 
here designated high crimes and misdemeanors against the 
United States, made such by the laws of the United States, 
which the framers of the Constitution knew must be passed 
in the nature of the government they were about to create, 
because these are offenses which strike at the existence of 
that Government. "Other high crimes and misdemeanors." 
Noscitur a sociis [one is known by the company he 
keeps.] High crimes and misdemeanors, — so high that 
they belong in this company with treason and bribery. That 
is plain on the face of the Constitution, — in the very first 
step it takes on the subject of impeachment. "High crimes 
and misdemeanors" against what law? There can be no 
crime, there can be no misdemeanor without a law, written 
or unwritten, express or implied. There must be some law, 
otherwise there is no crime. My interpretation of it is that 
the language "high crimes and misdemeanors" means "of- 
fenses against the laws of the United States." Let us see 
if the Constitution has not said so. 

The first clause of the second section of the second article 
of the Constitution reads thus: 

"The President of the United States shall have the power 
to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the 
United States, except in cases of impeachment." 

"Offenses against the United States" would include "cases 
of impeachment," and they might be pardoned by the Presi- 
dent, if they were not excepted. Then cases of impeach- 
ment are, according to the express declaration of the Con- 
stitution itself, cases of offenses against the United States. 

Still, the learned manager says that this is not a court, 



462 Benjamin R. Curtis 

and that, whatever may be the character of tliis body, it is 
bound by no law. Very different was the understanding of 
the fathers of the Constitution on this subject. ... I 
say, then, that it is inij)ossibIe not to come to the conclusion 
that the Constitution of the United States has designated 
impeachable offenses as offenses against the United States ; 
that it has provided for the trial of those offenses ; that it 
has established a tribunal for the purpose of trying them ; 
that it has directed the tribunal, in case of conviction, to 
pronounce a judgment upon the conviction and inflict a pun- 
ishment. All this being provided for, can it be maintained 
that this is not a court, or that it is bound by no law? 

But the argument does not rest mainly, I think, upon the 
])rovisions of the Constitution concerning impeachment. It 
is, at any rate, vastly strengthened by the direct prohibi- 
tions of the Constitution. "Congress shall pass no bill of 
attainder or cr post facto law." According to that prohibi- 
tion of the Constitution, if every member of this body, sit- 
ting in its legislative capacity, and every member of the 
other body, sitting in its legislative capacity, should unite 
in passing a law to punish an act after the act was done, 
that law would be a mere nullity. Yet what is claimed by 
the honorable managers in behalf of members of this body.^ 
As a Congress, you can not create a law to punish these actsi, 
if no law existed at the time they were done; but sitting 
here as judges, not only after the fact, but while the case is 
on trial, you may individually, each one of you, create a 
law by himself to govern the case ! 

According to the doctrine now advanced, bills of 
attainder are not prohibited by this Constitution : they are 
only slightly modified. It is only necessary for the House 
of Representatives by a majority to vote an impeachment 
and send up certain articles and have two-thirds of this 
body vote in favor of conviction, and there is an attainder; 
and it is done by the same process and depends on identi- 
cally the same principles as a bill of attainder in the Eng- 
lish Parliament. The individual wills of the legislators. 



Impeachment of Johnson 463 

instead of the conscientious discharge of the duty of the 
judges, settle the result. 

I submit, then, Senators, that this view of the honorable 
managers of the duties and powers of this body can not be 
maintained. But the attempt made by the honorable man- 
agers to obtain a conviction upon this tenth article is at- 
tended with some peculiarities which I think it is the duty 
of the counsel of the President to advert to. So far as re- 
gards the preceding articles, the first eight articles are 
framed upon the allegations that the President broke a 
law. I suppose the honorable managers do not intend to 
carry their doctrine so far as to say that, unless you find the 
President did intentionally break a law, those articles are 
supported. As to those articles, there is some law unques- 
tionably, the very gist of the charge being that he broke 
a law. You must find that the law existed ; you must con- 
strue it, and apply it to the case ; you must find his criminal 
intent wilfully to break the law, before the articles can 
be supported. But we come now to this tenth article, which 
depends upon no law at all, but, as I have said, is attended 
with some extraordinary peculiarities. 

The complaint is that the President made speeches against 
Congress. . . . Well, who are the grand jury in this 
case? One of the parties spoken against. And who are 
the triers ? The other party spoken against. One would 
think there was some incongruity in this, some reason for 
giving pause before taking any great stride in that direc- 
tion. The honorable House of Representatives sends its 
managers here to take notice of what? That the House of 
Representatives has erected itself into a school of manners, 
selecting from its ranks those gentlemen whom it deems 
most competent by precept and example to teach decorum 
of speech; and they desire the judgment of this body 
whether the President has not been guilty of indecorum, 
whether he has spoken properly, to use the phrase of the 
honorable manager. Now, there used to be an old-fashioned 
notion that, although there might be a difference of taste 



464 Benjamin R. Curtis 

about oral speeches, and no doubt always has been and 
always will be many sucli differences, there was one very 
important test in reference to them, and that is whether 
they are true or false; but it seems that in this case that 
is no test at all. The honorable manager, in opening the 
case, finding, I suppose, that it was necessary in some man- 
ner to advert to that subject, has done it in terms which I 
will read to you : 

"The words are not alleged to be either false or defama- 
tory, because it is not within the power of any man, how- 
ever high his official position, in effect to slander the Con- 
gress of the United States, in the ordinary sense of that 
word, so as to call on Congress to answer as to the truth of 
the accusation." 

Considering the nature of our government, considering 
the experience which we have gone through on this subject, 
that is a pretty lofty claim. Why, if the Senate jjlease, if 
you go back to the time of the Plantagenets and seek for 
precedents there, you will not find so lofty a claim as 
that. . . . 

The great men of the realm in the time of Richard II. 
were protected only against "horrible and false lies," and 
when we arrive in the course of our national experience, 
during the war with France and the administration of Mr. 
Adams, to the attempt to check, not free speech, but free 
writing [the Sedition Act of 1798], Senators will find that, 
although it applied only to written libels, it contained an 
express section that the truth might be given in evidence. 

But no one ever imagined that freedom of 
speech, in contradistinction from written libel, could be re- 
strained by a law of Congress ; for whether you treat the 
prohibition in the Constitution as absolute in itself, or 
whether you refer to the common law for a definition of its 
limits and meaning, the result will be the same. Under the 
common law, no man was ever punished criminally for 
spoken words. If he slandered his neighbor and injured 
him, he must make good in damages to his neighbor the in- 



Impeachment of Johnson 465 

jury he had done; but there was no such thing at the com- 
mon law as an indictment for spoken words. So that this 
prohibition in the Constitution against any legislation by 
Congress in restraint of the freedom of speech is neces- 
sarily an absolute prohibition ; and therefore this is a case 
not only where there is no law made prior to the act to pun- 
ish the act-, but a case where Congress is expressly pro- 
hibited from making any law to operate even on subsequent 
acts. 

What is the law to be ? Suppose it is^ as the honorable 
managers seem to think it should be, the sense of propriety 
of each Senator appealed to. What is it to be.'^ The only 
rule I have heard, the only rule which can be announced, is 
that you may require the speaker to speak properly. Who 
are to be the judges whether he speaks properly.^ In this 
case, the Senate of the United States, on the presentation 
of the House of Representatives of the United States ; and 
that is supposed to be the freedom of speech secured by 
this absolute prohibition of the Constitution ! That is the 
same freedom of speech. Senators, in consequence of which 
thousands of men went to the scaffold under the Tudors 
and the Stuarts. That is the same freedom of speech which 
caused thousands of heads of men and women to roll from 
the guillotine in France. That is the same freedom of 
speech which has caused in our day, more than once, "order 
to reign in Warsaw."* The persons did not speak properly 
in the apprehension of the judges before whom they were 
brought. Is that the freedom of speech intended to be se- 
cured by our Constitution ? 

It must be unnecessary for me to say anything concern- 
ing the importance of this case, not only now, but in the 
future. It must be apparent to every one, in any way con- 
nected with or concerned in this trial, that this is and will 
be the most conspicuous instance which ever has been or 

*The reference is to the savage cruelty with which the Russian government, 
in 1863-66, put down political agitation in Poland. 



466 Benjamin R. Curtis 

can ever be expected to be found of American justice or 
American injustice, of that justice which Mr. Burke says 
is the great standing policy of all civilized States, or of 
that injustice which is sure to be discovered and which 
makes even the wise man mad, and which, in the fixed and 
immutable order of God's providence, is certain to plague 
its inventors. 



32. CARL SCHURZ, of Missouri.— PLEA FOR A 
GENERAL AMNESTY 

(Delivered in the Senate, January 30, 1872.) 

Aside from the problem of restoring loyal State govern- 
ments in the South and admitting their representatives to 
Congress, the most important question of political recon- 
struction concerned the treatment of the persons engaged 
in the attempted secession and resulting war. When the 
North granted belligerent rights to the South, it precluded 
itself from subsequently treating participation in the war 
as treason, punishable with death. December 8, 1863, Pres- 
ident Lincoln issued the first amnesty proclamation, which 
offered full pardon and restoration of property rights (ex- 
cept in slaves and in cases where rights had accrued to 
third parties) to all who should take a prescribed oath of 
loyalty; from this offer were excepted, however, officers in 
the Confederate army above the rank of colonel and in the 
navy above lieutenant, and those who had left judicial sta- 
tions or seats in Congress or had resigned commissions un- 
der the United States to aid the Rebellion. Wlien Presi- 
dent Johnson succeeded Lincoln he extended the list of 

Carl Schurz. Born in Germany, 1829; studied at the University of Bonn; 
took part in the revolutionary movements of 1848-49; refugee in Switzerland. 
Paris, and London, 1849-52; emigrated to United States, 1852; member of Repub- 
lican National Convention, 1860: U. S. minister to Spain, 1861, but resigned to 
enter the Federal army; appointed brigadier general, 1862, and major general, 
1863; U. S. Senator from Missouri, 1869-75; supported Greeley for President, 1872; 
Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes, 1877-81; editor New York 
Evening Post, 1881-84; supported Cleveland for President, 1884; President Na- 
tional Civil Service Reform League, 1892-1901 ; died, 1906. 

467 



468 Carl Schurz 

exceptions with the intention of "making treason odious" 
to some fourteen classes^ including all graduates of West 
Point or Annapolis who had joined the Rebellion, governors 
of States in rebellion, and all persons worth over $20,000; 
persons in the excepted classes might, however, make spe- 
cial applications for pardons, which it was promised would 
be liberally granted (May 29, 1865). In a proclamation 
of December 25, 1868, President Johnson offered full jjar- 
don and amnesty for treason, without the taking of an 
oath, to all 2Jarticipants in the Rebellion. 

The Fourteenth Amendment, however, which was de- 
clared in force July 28, 1868, imposed disability to hold 
office upon all who in higher positions had engaged in the 
Rebellion, but gave Congress permission to remove such 
disability by two-thirds vote of each house. In a large num- 
ber of individual cases Congress did by such votes remove 
the disability. The general attitude of Congress on the 
whole subject, however, is thus characterized by S. S. Cox, 
Democratic Representative from New York: "It was a 
grace which was grudged, amnesty which was exceptive, 
and oblivion brimful of memories. It was most ungracious 
grace. It was punitive pardon; it was a rushing and tur- 
bulent Lethe." (Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legisla- 
tion, p. 595.) Various attempts were made to pass a gen- 
eral amnest}^ act (with exceptions), and it was in connec- 
tion with one of these that the speech was made which is 
here given. Its author was one of those high-souled lib- 
erally educated Germans who had fled from the Father- 
land after the failure of the German Revolution of ISiS, 
had served his adopted country with fervent patriotism in 
both forum and field, and subsequently was to make him- 
self the especial champion before the country of civil serv- 
ice reform and other forms of civic righteousness. The 
particular bill under discussion failed for want of the nee- 



Plea for Amnesty 469 

essary two-thirds vote; but a subsequent measure became 
law (May 22, 1872), which removed the political disabili- 
ties of all persons who had engaged in the rebellion except 
(1) those who had been members of the 36th and 37th Con- 
gresses, and (2) former officers in the judicial, military, 
or naval service of the United States, heads of depart- 
ments, and foreign representatives of the United States. 
These remaining disabilities were removed by an act of 
June 6, 1898. 

[Carl Schurz, in the U. S. Senate, January 30, 1872.] 

MR. President: ... In the course of this de- 
bate we have listened to some Senators, as they 
conjured up before our eyes once more all the 
horrors of the Rebellion, the wickedness of its conception, 
how terrible its incidents were, and how harrowing its con- 
sequences. Sir, I admit it all ; I will not combat the correct- 
ness of the picture; and yet if I differ with the gentlemen 
who drew it, it is because, had the conception of the Rebel- 
lion been still more wicked, had its incidents been still more 
terrible, its consequences still more harrowing, I could not 
permit myself to forget that in dealing with the question 
now before us we have to deal not alone with the past, but 
with the present and future interests of this republic. 

What do we want to accomplish as good citizens and 
patriots? Do we mean only to inflict upon the late rebels 
pain, degradation, mortification, annoyance, for its own 
sake ; to torture their feelings without any ulterior purpose } 
Certainly such a purjDOse could not by any possibility ani- 
mate high-minded men. I presume, therefore, that those 
who still favor the continuance of some of the disabilities 
imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment do so because they 
have some higher object of public usefulness in view, an 
object of public usefulness sufficient to justify, in their 
minds at least, the denial of rights to others which we our- 
selves enjoy. 



4/0 Carl Schurz 

What can those objects of" public usefulness be? Let me 
assume that, if we differ as to the means to be employed, we 
are agreed as to the supreme end and aim to be reached. 
That end and aim of our endeavors can be no other than to 
secure to all the States the blessings of good and free gov- 
ernment and the highest degree of prosperity and well- 
being they can attain, and to revive in all citizens of this 
republic that love for the Union and its institutions, and 
that inspiring consciousness of a common nationality which, 
after all, must bind all Americans together. 

What are the best means for the attainment of that end? 
This, sir, as I conceive it, is the only legitimate question we 
have to decide. Certainly all will agree that this end is far 
from having been attained so far. Look at the Southern 
States as they stand before us to-day. Some are in a con- 
dition bordering upon anarchy, not only on account of the 
social disorders which are occurring there, or the inefficiency 
of their local governments in securing the enforcement of 
the laws ; but you will find in many of them fearful corrup- 
tion pervading the whole political organization ; a combina- 
tion of rascality and ignorance wielding official power; their 
finances deranged by jirofligate practices ; their credit 
ruined; bankruptcy staring them in the face; their indus- 
tries staggering under a fearful load of taxation ; their 
property-holders and capitalists paralyzed by a feeling of 
insecurity and distrust almost amounting to despair. Sir, 
let us not try to disguise these facts, for the world knows 
them to be so, and knows it but too well. 

What are the causes that have contributed to bring about 
this distressing condition? I admit that great civil wars, re- 
sulting in such vast social transformations as the sudden 
abolition of slavery, are calculated to produce similar re- 
sults ; but it might be presumed that a recuperative power 
such as this country possesses might, during the time which 
has elapsed since the close of the war, at least have very 
materially alleviated many of the consequences of that 
revulsion, had a wise policy been followed. 



Plea for Amnesty 471 

Was the policy we followed wise? Was it calculated to 
promote the great purposes we are endeavoring to serve? 
Let us see. At the close of the war we had to establish and 
secure free labor and the rights of the emancipated class. 
To that end we had to disarm those who could have pre- 
vented this, and we had to give the power of self-protection 
to those who needed it. For this reason temporary restric- 
tions were imposed upon the late rebels, and we gave the 
right of suffrage to the colored people. Until the latter 
were enabled to protect themselves, political disabilities 
even more extensive than those which now exist rested upon 
the plea of eminent political necessity. I would be the last 
man to conceal that I thought so then, and I think there 
was very good reason for it. 

But, sir, when the enfranchisement of the colored people 
was secured; when they had obtained the political means to 
protect themselves, — then another problem began to loom 
up. It was not only to find new guarantees for the rights 
of the colored people, but it was to secure good and honest 
government to all. Let us not underestimate the impor- 
tance of that problem, for in a great measure it includes the 
solution of the other. Certainly nothing could have been 
more calculated to remove the prevailing discontent concern- 
ing the changes that had taken place, and to reconcile men's 
minds to the new order of things, than the tangible proof 
that the new order of things was practically working well; 
that it could produce a wise and economical administration 
of public affairs, and that it would promote general pros- 
perity, thus healing the wounds of the past and opening to 
all the prospect of a future of material well-being and con- 
tentment. And, on the other hand, nothing could have been 
more calculated to impede a general, hearty, and honest ac- 
ceptance of the new order of things by the late rebel popu- 
lation, than just those failures of public administration 
which involve the people in material embarrassments and 
so seriously disturb their comfort. In fact, good, honest, 
and successful government in the Southern States would in 



472 Carl Schurz 

its moral effects, in the long run, have exerted a far more 
beneficial influence than all your penal legislation, while 
your penal legislation will fail in its desired effects if we 
fail in establishing in the Southern States an honest and 
successful administration of the public business. 

Now, what happened in the South? It is a well-known 
fact that the more intelligent classes of Southern society 
almost uniformly identified themselves with the Rebellion ; 
and by our system of political disabilities just those classes 
were excluded from the management of political affairs. 
That they could not be trusted with the business of intro- 
ducing into living practice the results of the war, to estab- 
lish true free labor, and to protect the rights of the emanci- 
pated slaves, is true ; I willingly admit it. But when those 
results and rights were constitutionally secured, there were 
other things to be done. Just at that period when the 
Southern States lay prostrated and exhausted at our feet, 
when the destructive besom of war had swept over them and 
left nothing but desolation and ruin in its track, when their 
material interests were to be built up again with care and 
foresight — just then the public business demanded, more 
than ordinarily, the co-operation of all the intelligence and 
all the political experience that could be mustered in the 
Southern States. But just then a large portion of that in- 
telligence and experience was excluded from the manage- 
ment of public affairs by political disabilities, and the con- 
trolling power in those States rested in a great measure in 
the hands of those who had but recently been slaves and 
just emerged from that condition, and in the hands of 
others who had sometimes honestly, sometimes by crooked 
means and for sinister purposes, found a way to their con- 
fidence. 

This was the state of things as it then existed. Nothing 
could be further from my intention than to cast a slur upon 
the character of the colored people of the South. In fact, 
their conduct immediately after that great event which 
struck the shackles of slavery from their limbs was above 



Plea for Amnesty 473 

praise. Look into the history of the world, and you will 
find that almost every similar act of emancipation — the 
abolition of serfdom, for instance — was uniformly accom- 
panied by the atrocious outbreaks of a revengeful spirit; 
by the slaughter of nobles and their families, illumined by 
the glare of their burning castles. Not so here. While all 
the horrors of San Domingo had been predicted as certain 
to follow upon emancipation, scarcely a single act of re- 
venge for injuries suffered or for misery endured has dark- 
ened the record of the emancipated bondmen of America. 
And thus their example stands unrivaled in history, and 
they, as well as the whole American people, may well be 
proud of it. Certainly, the Southern people should never 
cease to remember and appreciate it. 

But while the colored people of the South earned our ad- 
miration and gratitude, I ask you in all candor could they 
be reasonably expected, when, just after having emerged 
from a condition of slavery, they were invested with politi- 
cal rights and privileges, to step into the political arena as 
men armed with the intelligence and experience necessary 
for the management of public affairs and for the solution 
of problems made doubly intricate by the disasters which 
had desolated the Southern country? Could they reason- 
ably be expected to manage the business of public adminis- 
tration, involving to so great an extent the financial interests 
and the material well-being of the people, and surrounded 
by difficulties of such fearful perplexity, with the wisdom 
and skill required by the exigencies of the situation.'' That 
as a class they were ignorant and inexperienced and lacked 
a just conception of public interests, was certainly not their 
fault; for those who have studied the history of the world 
know but too well that slavery and oppression are very bad 
political schools. But the stubborn fact remains that they 
were ignorant and inexperienced; that the public business 
was an unknown world to them, and that in spite of the 
best intentions they were easily misled, not infrequently by 
the most reckless rascality which had found a way to their 



474 Carl Schurz 

confidence. Thus their political rights and privileges were 
undoubtedly well calculated, and even necessary, to protect 
their rights as free laborers and citizens ; but they were not 
well calculated to secure a successful administration of 
other public interests. 

I do not blame the colored people for it, still less do I say 
that for this reason their political rights and privileges 
should have been denied them. Xay, sir, I deemed it neces- 
sary then, and I now reaffirm that opinion, that they should 
possess those rights and privileges for the permanent estab- 
lishment of the logical and legitimate results of the war 
and the protection of their new position in society. But, 
while never losing sight of this necessity, I do say that the 
inevitable consequence of the admission of so large an un- 
educated and inexperienced class to political power, as to 
the probable mismanagement of the material interests of 
the social body, should at least have been mitigated by a 
counterbalancing policy. When ignorance and inexperience 
were admitted to so large an influence upon public affairs, 
intelligence ought no longer to so large an extent to have 
been excluded. In other words, when universal suffrage was 
granted to secure the equal rights of all, universal amnesty 
ought to have been granted to make all the resources of 
political intelligence and experience available for the pro- 
motion of the welfare of all. 

But what did we do? To the uneducated and inex- 
perienced classes— uneducated and inexperienced, I repeat, 
entirely without tlieir fault — we opened the road to power; 
and, at the same time, we condemned a large proportion of 
the intelligence of those States, — of the property-holding, 
the industrial, the professional, the tax-j^aying interest, — to 
a worse than passive attitude. We made it, as it were, easy 
for rascals who had gone South in quest of profitable ad- 
venture to gain the control of masses so easily misled, by 
permitting them to appear as the exponents and representa- 
tives of the national power and of our policy ; and at the 
same time we branded a large number of men of intelli- 



Plea for Amnesty 475 

gence, and many of them of personal integrity, whose ma- 
terial interests were so largely involved in honest govern- 
ment, and many of whom would have co-operated in manag- 
ing the public business with care and foresight — we branded 
them, I say, as outcasts ; telling them that they ought not to 
be suffered to exercise any influence upon the management 
of the public business, and it would be unwarrantable pre- 
sumption in them to attempt it. 

I ask you, sir, could such things fail to contribute to the 
results we to-day read in the political corruption and de- 
moralization, and in the financial ruin of some of the 
Southern States ? These results are now before us. The 
mistaken policy may have been pardonable when these con- 
sequences were still a matter of conjecture and speculation; 
but what excuse have we now for continuing it when those 
results are clear before our eyes, beyond the reach of con- 
tradiction .'' 

These considerations would seem to apply more particu- 
larly to those Southern States where the colored element 
constitutes a very large proportion of the voting body. 
There is another which applies to all. 

When the Rebellion stood in arms against us, we fought 
and overcame force by force. That was right. When the 
results of the war were first to be established and fixed, we 
met the resistance they encountered with that power which 
the fortune of war and the revolutionary character of the 
situation had placed at our disposal. The feelings and 
prejudices which then stood in our way had under such 
circumstances but little, if any, claim to our consideration. 
But when the problem presented itself of securing the per- 
manency, the peaceable development, and the successful 
working of the new institutions we had introduced into our 
political organism, we had as wise men to take into careful 
calculation the moral forces we had to deal with. For let us 
not indulge in any delusion about this : what is to be per- 
manent in a republic like this must be supported by public 



476 



Carl Schurz 



opinion ; it must rest at least upon the willing acquiescence 
of a large and firm majority of the people. 

The introduction of the colored people, the late slaves, 
into the bodj^-politic as voters, pointedly affronted the tra- 
ditional prejudices prevailing among the Southern whites. 
What should we care about those prejudices? In war, 
nothing. After the close of the war, in the settlement of 
peace, not enough to deter us from doing what was right 
and necessary; and yet, still enough to take them into ac- 
count when considering the manner in which right and ne- 
cessity Mere to be served. Statesmen will care about popu- 
lar prejudices as physicians will care about the diseased 
condition of their patients, which they want to ameliorate. 
Would it not have been wise for us, looking at those preju- 
dices as a morbid condition of the Southern mind, to miti- 
gate, to assuage, to disarm them by prudent measures, and 
thus to weaken their evil influence? We desired the South- 
ern Avhites to accept in good faith universal suffrage, to 
recognize tlie political rights of the colored man, and to pro- 
tect him in their exercise. Was not that our sincere desire? 
But if it was, would it not have been wise to remove as 
much as possible the obstacles that stood in the way of 
that consummation ? But what did we do ? When we 
raised the colored people to the rights of active citizenship 
and opened to them all the privileges of eligibility, we 
excluded from those privileges a large and influential class 
of whites ; in other words, we lifted the late slave, unedu- 
cated and inexperienced as he was, — I repeat, without his 
fault, — not merely to the level of the late master class, but 
even above it. We asked certain white men to recognize 
the colored man in a political status not only as high but 
even higher than their own. We might say that under the 
circumstances we had a perfect right to do that, and I will 
not dispute it ; but I ask you most earnesth^, sir, was it 
wise to do it? If you desired the white man to accept and 
recognize the political equality of the black, was it wise 
to embitter and exasperate his spirit with tlie stinging 



Plea for Amnesty 477 

stigma of his own inferiority? Was it wise to withhold 
from him privileges in the enjoyment of which he was to 
protect the late slave? This was not assuaging, disarm- 
ing prejudice; this was rather inciting, it was exasperating 
it. American statesmen will understand and appreciate 
human nature as it has developed itself under the influence 
of free institutions. We know that if we want any class 
of people to overcome their prejudices in respecting the 
political rights and privileges of any other class, the very 
first thing we have to do is to accord the same rights and 
privileges to them. No American was ever inclined to 
recognize in others public rights and privileges from which 
he himself was excluded ; and for aught I know, in this 
very feeling, although it may take an objectionable form, 
we find one of the safeguards of popular liberty. 

I remember, also, to have heard the argument that under 
all circumstances the law must be vindicated. What law in 
this case? If any law is meant, it must be the law imposing 
the penalty of death upon the crime of treason. Well, if at 
the close of the war we had assumed the stern and bloody 
virtue of the ancient Roman, and had proclaimed that he 
who raises his hand against this republic must surely die, 
then we might have claimed for ourselves at least the merit 
of logical consistency. We might have thought that by 
erecting a row of gallows stretching from the Potomac to 
the Rio Grande, and by making a terrible example of all 
those who had proved faithless to their allegiance, we would 
strike terror into the hearts of this and coming generations, 
to make them tremble at the mere thought of treasonable un- 
dertakings. That we might have done. Why did we not? 
Because the American people instinctively recoiled from the 
idea; because every wise man remembered that where in- 
surrections are punished and avenged with the bloodiest 
hands, there insurrections do most frequently occur, — wit- 
ness France and Spain and the southern part of this hemi- 
sphere; that there is a fascination for bloody reckonings 



478 Carl Schurz 

which allures instead of repelling — a fascination like that 
of the serpent's eye, which irresistibly draws on its victim. 
The American people recoiled from it, because they felt 
and knew that the civilization of the nineteenth century has 
for such evils a better medicine than blood. 

Thus, sir, the penalty of treason, as provided for by law, 
remained a dead letter on the statute book, and we instinct- 
ively adopted a generous policy, and we added fresh luster 
to the glory of the American name by doing so. And now 
you would speak of vindicating the law against treason,^ 
which demands death, by merely excluding a number of 
persons from eligibility to office ! Do you not see that, as 
a vindication of the law against treason, as an act of punish- 
ment, the system of disabilities sinks down to the level of a 
ridiculous mockery.'' If you want your system of disabili- 
ties to appear at all in a respectable light, then, in the name 
of common sense, do not call it a punishment for treason. 
Standing there, as it does, stripped of all the justification it 
once derived from political necessity, it would appear only 
as the evidence of an impotent desire to be severe without 
the courage to carry it out. But, having once adopted the 
policy of generosity, the only question for us is how to make 
that policy most fruitful. The answer is: We shall make 
the policy of generosity most fruitful by making it most 
complete. 

Look at the nations around us. In the Parliament of 
Germany how many men are there sitting who were once 
what you would call fugitives from justice, exiles on account 
of their revolutionary acts [in 184-8— 1-9], now admitted to 
the great council of the nation in the fullness of their 
rights and privileges — and mark you, without having been 
asked to abjure the opinions they formerly held, for at the 
present moment most of them still belong to the Liberal 
opposition. Look at Austria, where Count Andrassy, a 
man who, in 1849, was condemned to the gallows as a rebel, 
at this moment stands at the head of the imperial ministry; 



Plea for Amnesty 479 

and tliose who know the history of that country are fully 
aware that the policy of which that amnesty was a part, 
which opened to Count Andrassy the road to power, has 
attached Hungary more closely than ever to the Austrian 
Crown, from which a narrow-minded policy of severity 
would have driven her. 

Now, sir, ought not we to profit by the wisdom of such 
examples ? It may be said that other governments were far 
more rigorous in their first repressive measures, and that 
they put off the grant of a general amnesty much longer 
after suppressing an insurrection than we are required to 
do. So they did; but is not this the great republic of the 
New World, which marches in the very vanguard of modern 
civilization, and which, when an example of wisdom is set 
by other nations, should not only rise to its level, but far 
above it.^ 

It seems now to be generally admitted that the time has 
come for a more comprehensive removal of political disabili- 
ties than has so far been granted. If that sentiment be sin- 
cere, if you really do desire to accomplish the greatest pos- 
sible good by this measure that can be done, I would ask 
you what practical advantage do you expect to derive from 
the exclusions for which this bill provides? Look at them, 
one after another. 

First, all those are excluded who, when the Rebellion 
broke out, were members of Congress, and left their seats in 
these halls to join it. Why are these men to be excluded as 
a class ? Because this class contains a number of prominent 
individuals, who, in the Rebellion, became particularly con- 
spicuous and obnoxious, and among them we find those whom 
we might designate as the original conspirators. But these 
are few, and they might have been mentioned by name. 
Most of those, however, who left their seats in Congress to 
make common cause with the rebels were in no way more 
responsible for the Rebellion than other prominent men 
in the South who do not fall under this exception. 
Is it wise even to incur the suspicion of making an excep- 



480 Carl Schurz 

tion merely for the sake of excluding somebody, when no 
possible good can be accomplished by it, and when you can 
thus only increase the number of men incited to discontent 
and mischief by small and unnecessary degradations ? 

And now as to the original conspirators, what has become 
of them? Some of them are dead; and as to those who are 
still living, I ask you, sir, are they not dead also? Look at 
Jefferson Davis himself. What if you exclude even him — 
and certainly our feelings would naturally impel us to do 
so; but let our reason speak: what if you exclude even him? 
Would you not give him an importance which otherwise he 
never would joossess, by making people believe that you are 
even occupying your minds enough with him to make him an 
exception to an act of generous wisdom? Truly to refrain 
from making an act of amnesty general on account of the 
original consjDirators, candidly speaking, I would not con- 
sider worth while. I would not leave them the pitiable dis- 
tinction of not being pardoned. Your very generosity will 
be to them the source of the bitterest disappointment. As 
long as they are excluded, they may still find some satisfac- 
tion in the delusion of being considered men of dangerous 
importance. Their very disabilities they look upon to-day as 
a recognition of their power. They may still make them- 
selves and others believe that, were the Southern people only 
left free in their choice, they would eagerly raise them 
again to the highest honors. 

But you relieve them of their exclusion, and they will at 
once become conscious of their nothingness, a nothingness 
most glaringly consjjicuous then, for you will have drawn 
away the veil that has concealed it. I suspect that gentle- 
men on the Democratic side of the House, whom they would 
consider their political friends, would be filled with dismay 
at the mere thought of their reappearance among them. If 
there is anything that could prevent them from voting for 
universal ainnesty, it might be the fear, if they entertained 
it at all, of seeing Jefferson Davis once more a Senator of 
the United States. 



Plea for Amnesty 481 

So much for the first exception. Now to the second. It 
excludes from the benefit of this act all those who were offi- 
cers of the Army or of the Navy and then joined the Rebel- 
lion. Why exclude that class of persons ? I have heard the 
reason very frequently stated upon the floor of the Senate; 
it is because those men have been educated at the public 
expense, and their turning against the Government was 
therefore an act of peculiar faithlessness and black ingrati- 
tude. . . . Is it not a fact universally recognized, and 
I believe entirely uncontradicted, that of all classes of men 
connected with the Rebellion there is not one whose conduct 
since the close of the war has been so unexceptionable, and 
in a great many instances so beneficial in its influence upon 
Southern society, as the officers of the Army and the Navy, 
especiall)^ those who before the war had been members of 
our regular establishments? Why, then, except them from 
this act of amnesty? If you take subsequent good conduct 
into account at all, these men are the very last who as a 
class ought to be excluded. And would it not be well to 
encourage them in well-doing by a sign on your part that 
they are not to be looked upon as outcasts whose influence 
is not desired, even when they are inclined to use it for the 
promotion of the common welfare ? 

The third class excluded consists of those who were 
members of State conventions, and in those State conven- 
tions voted for ordinances of secession. . . . If you 
accept the proposition that it will be well and wise to per- 
mit the intelligence of the country to participate in the man- 
agement of the public business, the exclusion of just these 
people will appear especially inappro^jriate, because their 
local influence might be made peculiarly beneficial ; and if 
you exclude these persons, whose number is considerable, 
you tell just that class of people whose co-operation might 
be made most valuable that their co-operation is not wanted, 
for the reason that, according to the meaning and intent of 
your system of disabilities, public affairs are no business of 
theirs. You object that they are more guilty than the rest. 



482 Carl Schurz 

Suppose they are — and in many eases I am sure they are 
only apparently so — but if they were not guilty of any 
wrong, they would need no amnesty. Amnesty is made for 
those who bear a certain degree of guilt. Or would you 
indulge here in the solemn farce of giving pardon only to 
those who are presumably innocent.^ You grant your am- 
nesty that it may bear good fruit; and if you do it for that 
purpose, then do not diminish the good fruit it may bear by 
leaving unplanted the most promising soil upon which it 
may grow. 

A few words now about the second section of the bill 
before you^ which imposes upon those who desire to have 
the benefit of amnesty the duty of taking an oath to support 
the Constitution before some public officer, that oath to be 
registered, the list to be laid before Congress and to be pre- 
served in the office of the Secretary of State. Sir, I ask you, 
can you or any one tell me what practical good is to be ac- 
complished by a provision like this ? You may say that the 
taking of another oath will do nobody any harm. Prob- 
ably not; but can you tell me^ in the name of common sense, 
what harm in this case the taking of that oath will prevent.'' 
Or have we read the history of the world in vain, that we 
should not know yet how little political oaths are worth to 
improve the morality of a people or to secure the stability 
of a government.'' And what do you mean to accomplish by 
making up and preserving your lists of pardoned persons .'' 
Can they be of any possible advantage to the country in any 
way.'' Why, then, load down an act like this with such use- 
less circumstance, while, as an act of grace and wisdom, it 
certainly ought to be as straightforward and simple as 
possible ? 

Let me tell you it is the experience of all civilized nations 
the world over, when an amnesty is to be granted at all, the 
completest amnesty is always the best. Any limitation you 
may impose, however plausible it may seem at first sight, will 
be calculated to take away much of the virtue of that which 



Plea for Amnesty 483 

is granted. I entreat you, then, in the name of the accumu- 
lated experience of history, let there be an end of these bit- 
ter and useless and disturbing questions; let the books be 
finally closed, and when the subject is forever dismissed 
from our discussions and our minds, we shall feel as much 
relieved as those who are relieved of their political dis- 
abilities. 

Sir, I have to say a few words about an accusation which 
has been brought against those who speak in favor of uni- 
versal amnesty. It is the accusation resorted to, in default 
of more solid argument, that those who advise amnesty, 
especially universal amnesty, do so because they have fallen 
in love with the rebels. No, sir, it is not merely for the 
rebels I plead. We are asked, Shall the Rebellion go en- 
tirely unpunished? No, sir, it shall not. Neither do I 
think that the Rebellion has gone entirely unpunished. I 
ask you, had the rebels nothing to lose but their lives and 
their ofSces? Look at it. There was a proud and arrogant 
aristocracy, planting their feet on the necks of the laboring 
people, and pretending to be the born rulers of this great 
republic. They looked down, not only upon their slaves, 
but also upon the people of the North, with the liaughty 
contempt of self-asserting sviperiority. When their pre- 
tensions to rule us all were first successfully disputed, they 
resolved to destroy this republic, and to build up on the 
corner-stone of slavery an empire of their own in which 
they could hold absolute sway. They made the attempt 
with the most overweeningly confident expectation of cer- 
tain victory. Then came the Civil War, and after four 
years of struggle their whole power and pride lay shivered 
to atoms at our feet, their sons dead by tens of thousands 
on the battle-fields of this country, their fields and their 
homes devastated, their fortunes destroyed: and more than 
that, the whole social system in which they had their being, 
with all their hopes and pride, utterly wiped out; slavery 
forever abolished, and the slaves themselves created a politi- 
cal power before which they had to bow their heads ; and 



484 



Carl Schurz 



they, broken, ruined, lielpless^ and hopeless in the dust be- 
fore those upon whom they had so haughtily looked down 
as their vassals and inferiors. Sir, can it be said that the 
Rebellion has gone entirely unpunished? 

You may object that the loyal people, too, were subjected 
to terrible sufferings ; that their sons, too, were slaughtered 
b}' tens of thousands ; that the mourning of countless widows 
and orphans is still darkening our land ; that we are groan- 
ing under terrible burdens which the Rebellion has loaded 
upon us, and that therefore part of the punishment has 
fallen upon the innocent. And it is certainly true. 

But look at the difference. We issued from this great 
conflict as conquerors; upon the graves of our slain we 
could lay the wreath of victory; our widows and orphans, 
while mourning the loss of their dearest, still remember 
with proud exultation that the blood of their husbands and 
fathers was not spilled in vain; that it flowed for the great- 
est and holiest and at the same time the most victorious of 
causes ; and when our people labor in the sweat of their 
brow to pay the debt which the Rebellion has loaded upon 
us, they do it with the proud consciousness that the heavy 
price they have paid is infinitely overbalanced by the value 
of the results they have gained : slavery abolished ; the 
great American Republic purified of her foulest stain ; the 
American people no longer a people of masters and slaves, 
but a people of equal citizens ; the most dangerous element 
of disturbance and disintegration wiped out from among us ; 
this country put upon the course of harmonious develop- 
ment, — greater, more beautiful, mightier than ever in its 
self-conscious power. And thus, whatever losses, whatever 
sacrifices, whatever sufferings we may have endured, they 
appear before us in a blaze of glory. 

But how do the Southern people stand there .^ All they 
have sacrificed, all theij have lost, all the blood ihey have 
spilled, all the desolation of their homes, all the distress that 
stares them in the face, all the wreck and ruin they see 
around them — all for nothing, all for a wicked folly, all for 



Plea for Amnesty 485 

a disastrous infatuation : the very graves of their slain 
nothing but monuments of a shadowy delusion; all their 
former hopes vanished forever; and the very magniloquence 
which some of their leaders are still indulging in, nothing 
but a mocking illustration of their utter discomfiture ! Ah, 
sir, if ever human efforts broke down in irretrievable disas- 
ter, if ever human pride was humiliated to the dust, if ever 
human hopes were turned into despair, there you behold 
them. 

Nay, sir, I plead also for the colored people of the South, 
whose path will be smoothed by a measure calculated to as- 
suage some of the prejudices and to disarm some of the 
bitternesses which still confront them; and I am sure that 
nothing better could happen to them, nothing could be more 
apt to make the growth of good feeling between them and 
the former master-class easier, than the destruction of a 
system which, by giving them a political superiority, endan- 
gers their peaceable enjoyment of equal rights. 

And I may say to my honorable friend from Massachu- 
setts [Mr. Sumner J, who knows well how highly I esteem 
him, and whom I sincerely honor for his solicitude concern- 
ing the welfare of the lowly, that my desire to see their 
wrongs righted is no less sincere and no less unhampered by 
any traditional prejudice than his; although I will confess 
that as to the constitutional means to that end we may some- 
times seriously differ: but I can not refrain from expressing 
my regret that this measure should be loaded with anything 
that is not strictly germane to it, knowing as we both do 
that the amendment he has proposed can not secure the nec- 
essary two-thirds vote in at least one of the Houses of Con- 
gress, and that therefore it will be calculated to involve this 
measure also in the danger of common failure. I repeat, it 
is not merely for the rebels I plead ; it is for the whole 
American people: for there is not a citizen in the land 
whose true interests, rightly understood, are not largely 
concerned in every measure affecting the peace and welfare 
of any State of this Union. 



486 Carl Schurz 

Unless I am grievously in error, the people of 
the United States are a multitude not unthinking. The 
American people are fast becoming aware that, great as the 
crime of rebellion is, there are other villainies beside it; that 
much as it may deserve punishment there are other evils 
flagrant enough to demand energetic correction ; that the 
remedy for such evils does, after all, not consist in the main- 
tenance of political disabilities ; and that it would be well 
to look behind those vociferous demonstrations of exclusive 
and austere j^atriotism to see what abuses and faults of 
policy they are to cover, and what rotten sores they are to 
disguise. The American people are fast beginning to per- 
ceive that good and honest government in the South, as well 
as throughout the whole country, restoring a measurable de- 
gree of confidence and contentment, will do infinitely more 
to revive true loyalty and a healthy national spirit, than 
keeping alive the resentments of the past by a useless 
degradation of certain classes of persons ; and that we 
shall fail to do our duty unless we use every means to con- 
tribute our share to that end. And those, I apprehend, 
expose themselves to grievous disappointment who still 
think that, by dinning again and again in the ears of the 
people the old battle-cries of the Civil War, they can befog 
the popular mind as to the true requirements of the times, 
and overawe and terrorize the public sentiment of the 
country. 

Sir, I am coming to a close. One word more. We have 
heard protests here against amnesty as a measure intended 
to make us forget the past and to obscure and confuse our 
moral appreciation of the great events of our history. No, 
sir; neither would I have the past forgotten, with its great 
experiences and teachings. Let the memory of the grand 
uprising for the integrity of the republic, — let those heroic 
deeds and sacrifices before which the power of slavery 
crumbled into dust, — be forever held in proud and sacred 
remembrance by the American people. Let it never be for- 
gotten, as I am sure it never can be forgotten, that the 



Plea for Amnesty 487 

American Union^ supported by her faithful children, can 
never be undermined by any conspiracy ever so daring, nor 
overthrown by any array of enemies ever so formidable. 
Let the great achievements of our struggle for national ex- 
istence be forever a source of lofty inspiration to our chil- 
dren and children's children. 

But, sir, as the people of the North and of the South must 
live together as one people, and as they must be bound to- 
gether by the bonds of a common national feeling, I ask 
you, will it not be well for us so to act that the history of 
our great civil conflict, which can not be forgotten, can never 
be remembered by Southern men without finding in its clos- 
ing chapter this irresistible assurance : that we, their con- 
querors, meant to be, and were after all, not their enemies, 
but their friends.'' When the Southern people con over the 
distressing catalogue of the misfortunes they have brought 
upon themselves, will it not be well, will it not be "devoutly 
to be wished" for our common future, if at the end of that 
catalogue they find an act which will force every fair- 
minded man in the South to say of the Northern people, 
"When we were at war they inflicted upon us the severities 
of war; but when tlie contest had closed and they found us 
prostrate before them, grievously suffering, surrounded by 
the most perplexing difficulties and on the brink of new dis- 
asters, they promptly swept all the resentments of the past 
out of their way and stretched out their hands to us with the 
very fullest measure of generosity — anxious, eager, to lift 
us up from our prostration".'' 

No, sir; I would not have the past forgotten, but I would 
have its history completed and crowned by an act most 
worthy of a great, noble, and wise people. By all the means 
which we have in our hands, I would make even those who 
have sinned against this republic see in its flag, not the sym- 
bol of their lasting degradation, but of rights equal to all; 
I would make them feel in their hearts that in its good and 
evil fortunes their rights and interests are bound up just as 
ours are; and that therefore its peace, its welfare, its honor, 



488 Carl Schurz 

and its greatness may and ouglit to be as dear to them as 
they are to us. 

I do not, indeed, indulge in the delusion that this act 
alone will remedy all the evils which we now deplore. No, 
it will not ; but it will be a powerful appeal to the very best 
instincts and impulses of human nature: it will, like a warm 
ray of sunshine in springtime, quicken and call to light the 
germs of good intention wherever they exist: it will give 
new courage, confidence, and inspiration to the well-dis- 
posed: it will weaken the power of the mischievous, by 
stripping off their pretexts and exposing in their nakedness 
the wicked designs they still may cherish : it will light anew 
the beneficent glow of fraternal feeling and of national 
spirit; for, sir, your good sense as well as your heart must 
tell you that, when this is truly a people of citizens equal in 
their political rights, it will then be easier to make it also a 
people of brothers. 



33. HENRY W. GRADY, of Georgia.— THE NEW 
SOUTH 

(Delivered before the New England Club, in New York, 
December 21, 1886.) 

More pressing even than political reconstruction were 
the problems of economic regeneration and readjustment 
with which, at the close of the armed struggle, the South 
was confronted. Their country was left desolate and waste 
by the ravages of war ; their social and economic system 
was destroyed by emancipation. The blacks in large nimi- 
bers left their former homes, and regardless of crops to be 
tilled and problems of subsistence gave themselves up to 
the joys of their new freedom. The State governments 
were in the hands of Northern "carpetbaggers," Southern 
"scalawags," and unintelligent negroes. Little aid from 
their hands could be expected by the returned Confederates 
in working out their new existence ; and the Federal govern- 
ment usually confined its efforts to bolstering up the cor- 
ruption and extravagance which made Reconstruction a bye- 
word. Small wonder, then, that recovery was slow and 
gradual, and attended by much disorder. 

But in the end recovery came, and a New South was 
born, which is the theme of the oration here presented. 
Worn-out soils were strengthened by the use of fertilizers; 

Henry Woodfen Gradv. Born in Georgia, 1851; educated in the Universi- 
ties of Georgia and Virginia; engaged in journalism soon after the war; became 
editor and part owner of the Altanta Constitution in 18«0, with which he con- 
tinued until his death ; frequent contributor to the magazines and in later life a 
speaker on Southern topics; died at Atlanta, December 23, 1889. 

489 



490 Henry W. Grady 

manufactures were developed; and immigration both from 
the North and from abroad was encouraged to make good 
the waste of war. In all this Henry W. Grady was a lead- 
ing factor; and it is fitting that the praises of the New 
South should be sung by his lips. Known only as a writer 
prior to 188(3, the address which is here reprinted brought 
him into national notice as an orator. In the rather ful- 
some language of his friend, John Temple Graves, "In a 
single night he caught the heart of the country in his 
warm embrace and leaped from a banquet revelry into na- 
tional fame." His death three years later, from pneumonia 
contracted while filling a lecture engagement in Boston, de- 
prived the South of a sane and able counsellor who used 
his influence in fostering good feeling between the sections, 
and the whole country of one of its most eloquent orators. 



(Henry W. Grady, before the New Eiifjland Club, New York, December il, 1886.] 

THERE was a South of slavery and secession: that 
South is dead. There is a South of union and free- 
dom: that South, thank God, is living, breathing, 
growing every hour." These words, delivered from the im- 
mortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall in 1866, 
true then and truer now, I shall make my text to-night. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : Let me express to you my 
appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to ad- 
dress you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, 
for I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voice in this 
ancient and august presence, I could find courage for no 
more than the opening sentence, it would be well if in that 
sentence I had met in a rough sense my obligation as a 
guest, and had perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my 
lips and grace in my heart. Permitted, through your kind- 
ness, to catch my second wind, let me say that I appreciate 
the significance of being the first Southerner to speak at this 



The New South 491 

board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses the sem- 
blance, of original New England hospitality, and honors the 
sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my person- 
ality is lost and the compliment to my people made plain. 

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night. I 
am not troubled about those from whom I come. You re- 
member the man whose wife sent him to a neighbor with a 
pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the tojj step, fell 
(with such casual interruptions as the landings aff'orded) 
into the basement; and, while picking himself up, had the 
pleasure of hearing his wife call out: "John, did you break 
the pitcher?" "No, I didn't," said John, "but I'll be dinged 
if I don't." 

So, while those who call me from behind may inspire me 
with energy if not with courage, I ask an indulgent hearing 
from you. I beg that you will bring your full faith in 
American fairness and frankness to judgment upon what I 
shall say. There was an old preacher once who told some 
boys of the Bible lesson he was going to read in the morn- 
ing. The boys, finding the place, glued together the con- 
necting pages. The next morning he read at the bottom of 
one page, "When Noah was one hundred and twenty years 
old he took unto himself a wife who was" — then turning the 
page — ^"140 cubits long. iO cubits wide, built of gopher 
wood, and covered with pitch inside and out." He was nat- 
urally puzzled at this. He read it again, verified it, and 
then said: "My friends, this is the first time I ever met this 
in the Bible, but I accept this as an evidence of the asser- 
tion that we are fearfully and wonderfully made." If I 
could get you to hold such faith to-night, I could proceed 
cheerfully to the task I otherwise approach with a sense of 
consecration. 

Pardon me one word. Mr. President, spoken for the sole 
purpose of getting into the volumes that go out annually 
freighted with the rich eloquence of your speakers — the fact 
that the Cavalier as well as the Puritan was on the conti- 
nent in its earl)^ days, and that he was "up and able to be 



492 Henry W. Grady 

about." I have read your books carefully and I find no 
mention of that faet^ which seems an important one to me 
for preserving a sort of historical equilibrium if for nothing 
else. 

Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier first chal- 
lenged France on the continent; that Cavalier John Smith 
gave New England its very name, and was so pleased with 
the job that he has been handing his own name around ever 
since ; and that while ]V%les Standish was cutting off men's 
ears for courting a girl without her parents' consent, and 
forbade men to kiss their wives on Sunday, the Cavalier was 
courting everything in sight, and that the Almighty had 
vouchsafed great increase to the Cavalier colonies, the huts 
in the wilderness being full as the nests in the woods. 

But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in your 
charming little books, I shall let him work out his own salva- 
tion, as he has always done with engaging gallantry, and we 
will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? 
Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as such. The 
virtues and good traditions of both happily still live for the 
inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. 
But both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm of the 
first Revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both 
and stronger than either, took possession of the republic 
bought by their common blood and fashioned to wisdom, and 
charged- himself with teaching men government and estab- 
lishing the voice of the people as the voice of God. 

My friend Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical 
American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has al- 
ready come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to 
flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonies, 
Puritans and Cavaliers, — from the straightening of their 
]>urposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting 
through a century, — came he who stands as the first typical 
American, the first who comprehended within himself all the 
strength and gentleness, all the ma jest}' and grace of this 
republic — Abraham Lincoln. 



The New South 493 

He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent 
nature were fused the virtues of both and in the depths of 
his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater 
than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was Ameri- 
can, and that in his honest form were first gathered the vast 
and thrilling forces of his ideal government — charging it 
with such tremendous meaning and so elevating it above hu- 
man suffering that martyrdoiB, though infamously aimed, 
came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle 
to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and 
honoring his fathers, build with reverend hands to the type 
of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are hon- 
ored; and in our common glory as Americans there will be 
plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine. 

In speaking to the toast with wliich you have honored me, 
I accept the term, "The New South," as in no sense dispar- 
aging to the Old. Dear to me, sir, is the home of my child- 
hood and the traditions of my people. I would not, if I 
could, dim the glory they won in peace and war, or by word 
or deed take aught from the splendor and grace of their 
civilization — never equalled and perhaps never to be 
equalled in its chivalric strength and grace. There is a New 
South, not through protest against the Old, but because of 
new conditions, new adjustments, and, if you please, new 
ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself, 
and to the consideration of which I hasten lest it become the 
Old South before I get to it. . . . 

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, 
the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, 
in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to 
you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their 
glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell 
you of another army that sought its home at the close of the 
late war; an army that marched home in defeat and not in 
victory; in pathos and not in splendor; but in glory that 
equalled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed 
heroes home? Let me picture to you the footsore Con- 



494 Henry W. Grady 

federate soldier as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket 
the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his 
fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appo- 
mattox in April, 186a. 

Think of him as — ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, 
enfeebled by want and wounds, liaving fought to exhaus- 
tion — he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his com- 
rades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and jjallid face 
for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, 
pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and 
painful journey. What does he find — let me ask you who 
went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had 
justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice — what 
does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross 
against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much 
as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and 
beautiful ? 

He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves 
free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, 
his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnifi- 
cence, swept away : his people without law or legal status, 
his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his 
shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone. 
Without money, credit, employment, material, or training; 
and besides all this confronted with the gravest problem 
that ever met human intelligence — the establishing of a 
status for the vast body of his liberated slaves. 

What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart of gold? 
Does he sit down in sullenness and despair .'' Not for a day. 
Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, in- 
spired liim in his adversity. As ruin was never before so 
overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier 
stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had 
charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields 
that ran red with human blood in April were green with the 
harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses 
and made breeches for their husbands, and with a patience 



The New South 495 

and heroism that lit women always as a garment gave their 
hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. 
Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. "Bill Arp" struck 
the key-note when he said: "Well, I killed as many of them 
as they did of me, and now I'm going to work." Or the sol- 
dier returning home after defeat and roasting some corn on 
the roadside, who made the remark to his comrades: "You 
may leave the South if you want to, but I'm going to San- 
dersville, kiss my wife, and raise a crop, and if the Yankees 
fool with me any more I'll whip 'em again." 

I want to say to General Sherman, — who is considered an 
able man in our parts, though some people think he is a kind 
of careless man about fire, — that from the ashes he left us 
in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; that 
somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks 
and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one 
ignoble prejudice or memory. 

But what is the sum of our work.^ We have found out 
that in the summing up the free negro counts more than he 
did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hill- 
top and made it free to white and black. We have sowed 
towns and cities in the place of theories, and put business 
above politics. We have challenged your spinners in Mas- 
sachusetts and your iron-makers in Pennsylvania. We have 
learned that the $400,000,000 annually received from our 
cotton crop will make us rich when the sujiplies that make it 
are home-raised. We have reduced the commercial rate of 
interest from twenty-four to six per cent, and are floating 
four per cent bonds. 

We have learned that one Northern immigrant is worth 
fifty foreigners; and have smoothed the path to southward, 
wiped out the place where Mason and Dixon's line used to 
be, and hung out our latch-string to you and yours. We 
have reached the point that marks perfect harmony in every 
houseliold, when the husband confesses that the pies which 
his wife cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake ; 
and we admit that the sun shines as brightly and the moon 



49^ Henry W. Grady 

as softly as it did before the war. We have established 
thrift in city and country. ^Ve have fallen in love with our 
work. We have restored comfort to homes from which cul- 
ture and elegance never departed. We have let economy 
take root and spread among us as rank as the crabgrass 
which sprung from Sherman's cavalry camps, until we are 
ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee — as he manufac- 
tures relics of the battlefield in a one-story shanty and 
squeezes pure olive oil out of his cottonseed — against any 
Down-Easter that ever swapped wooden nutmegs for flan- 
nel sausage in the valleys of Vermont. Above all, we know 
that we have achieved in these "piping times of peace" a 
fuller independence for the South than that which our fa- 
thers sought to win in the forum by their eloquence, or com-' 
pel in the field by their swords. 

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, however hum- 
ble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided to human 
hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate 
and bleeding South— -misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in 
her suffering, and honest, brave, and generous always. In 
the record of her social, industrial, and political illustrations 
we await with confidence the verdict of the world. 

But what of the negro .^ Have we solved the problem he 
presents or progressed in honor and equity toward solution.'' 
Let the record speak to the point. No section shows a more 
prosperous laboring population than the negroes of the 
South, none in fuller sympathy with the employing and 
landowning class. He shares our school fund, has the full- 
est protection of our laws and the friendship of our people. 
Self-interest as well as honor demand that he should have 
this. Our future, our very existence, depend upon working 
out this problem in full and exact justice. 

We understand that when Lincoln signed the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, your victory was assured, for he then 
committed you to the cause of human liberty, against which 
the arms of man can not prevail ; while those of our states- 
men who trusted to make slaverv the "corner-stone" of the 



The New South 497 

Confederacy, doomed us to defeat as far as they could, com- 
mitting us to a cause that reason could not defend or the 
sword maintain in sight of advancing civilization. 

Had Mr. Toombs said (which he did not say) "that he 
would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill," 
he would have been foolish, for he might have known that 
whenever slavery became entangled in war it must perish, 
and that the chattel in human flesh ended forever in New 
England M'hen your fathers— not to be blamed for parting 
with what didn't pay — sold their slaves to our fathers — not 
to be praised for knowing a paying thing when they saw it. 

The relations of the Southern people with the negro are 
close and cordial. We remember with what fidelity for four 
years he guarded our defenseless women and children, 
whose husbands and fathers were fighting against his free- 
dom. To his eternal credit be it said that whenever he 
struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, 
and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that 
the shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent 
of wrong against his helpless charges, and worthy to be 
taken in loving grasp by every man who honors loyalty and 
devotion. 

Ruffians have maltreated him, rascals have misled him, 
philanthropists established a bank for him, but the South, 
with the North, protests against injustice to this simple and 
sincere people. To liberty and enfranchisement is as far as 
law can carry the negro. The rest must be left to conscience 
and common sense. It must be left to those among whom 
his lot is cast, with whom he is indissolubly connected, and 
whose prosperity depends upon their possessing his intelli- 
gent sympathy and confidence. Faith has been kept with 
him, in spite of calumnious assertions to the contrary by 
those who assume to speak for us, or by frank opponents. 
Faith will be kept with him in the future, if the South holds 
her reason and integrity. 

But have we kept faith with you.'' In the fullest sense, 
yes. When Lee surrendered — I don't say when Johnston 



498 Henry W. Grady 

surrendered, because I understand he still alludes to the 
time when he met General Sherman last as the time when he 
determined to abandon any further prosecution of the strug- 
gle; when Lee surrendered, I say, and Johnston quit, the 
South became, and has since been, loyal to this Union. 

We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped, 
and in perfect frankness accept as final the arbitrament of 
the sword to which we had appealed. The South found her 
jewel in the toad's head of defeat. The shackles that had 
held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the shackles 
of the negro slave were broken. Under the old regime the 
negroes were slaves to the South; the South was a slave to 
the system. The old plantation, with its simple police regu- 
lations and feudal habit, was the only type possible under 
slavery. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and 
chivalric oligarchy the substance that should have been dif- 
fused among the people, — as the rich blood, under certain 
artificial conditions, is gathered at the heart, filling that with 
affluent rapture, but leaving the body chill and colorless. 

The Old South rested everything on slavery and agricul- 
ture, imconscious that these could neither give nor maintain 
healthy growth. The New South presents a perfect democ- 
racy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement: a 
social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid on 
the surface, but stronger at the core; a hundred farms for 
every plantation, fifty homes for every palace; and a di- 
versified industry that meets the complex need of this com- 
plex age. 

The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul 
is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a 
grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling 
with the consciousness of growing power and prosperit3^ As 
she stands upright, full statured and equal among the peo- 
ple of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon 
the expanded horizon, she understands that her emancipa- 
tion came because through the inscrutable wisdom of God 



The New South 499 

her honest purpose was crossed, and her brave armies were 
beaten. 

This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The 
South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that 
the late struggle between the States was war and not rebel- 
lion; revolution and not conspiracy; and that her convictions 
were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless 
spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not 
make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to 
take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that 
crowns its central hill — a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into 
its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of 
men — that of a brave and simple man who died in a brave 
and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England, 
from Plymouth Rock all the way, would I exchange the her- 
itage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that 
I shall send my children's children to reverence him who en- 
nobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking 
from the shadow of that memory which I honor as I do noth- 
ing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered 
and for which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and 
fuller wisdom than his or mine; and I am glad that the 
omniscient God held the balance of battle in his Almighty 
hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from 
American soil — the American Union saved from the wreck 
of war. 

This message, Mr. President, comes to you from conse- 
crated ground. Every foot of soil about the city in which I 
live is as sacred as a battle-ground of the republic. Every 
hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your 
brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to 
us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted 
in defeat: sacred soil to all of us; rich with memories that 
make us purer and stronger and better; silent but staunch 
witnesses, in its red desolation, of the matchless valor of 
American hearts and the deathless glory of American arms; 
speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and pros- 



_500 Henry VV. Grady 

perity to the indissoluble union of American States and the 
imperishable brotherhood of the American people. 

Now, what answer has New England to this message? 
Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts 
of the conquerors when it has died in the hearts of the con- 
quered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next genera- 
tion, that in their hearts — which never felt the generous 
ardor of conflict — it may perpetuate itself? Will she with- 
hold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight from 
his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? 
Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, 
which gathered above the couch of your dying captain — 
filling liis heart with grace, touching his lips with praise, 
and glorifying his path to the grave— will she make this 
vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a 
benediction, a cheat and delusion? If she does, the South, 
never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with 
dignity its refusal ; but if she does not refuse to accept in 
frankness and sincerity this message of good will and 
friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in 
this very Society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, 
become true, be verified in its fullest sense, when he said: 
"Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should re- 
main united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the 
same country, members of the same government, united, all 
united now and united forever." There have been difficul- 
ties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you that in 
my judgment — 

"Those apposed eyes, 
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 
All of one nature, of one substance bred, 
Did lately meet in th' intestine shock, 
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, 
March all one way." 



34. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, of Alabama.— THE 
RACE PROBLEM 

(Delivered at the opening of the Atlanta, Ga., Exposition, 
September 18, 1895.) 

The abiding problem left by the Civil War is, the place 
to be filled by the negro in the life of the South. The Fif- 
teenth amendment gave him the franchise, and for a time 
the support of Federal arms enabled him to exercise it. But 
the Ku Klux Klan terrorized him with its fantastic and 
mysterious outrages ; and "by persuasion, fraud, or force" 
the negro after 187i was practically deprived of his vote 
wherever it might, if cast, affect the result. And since 1890, 
in practically all the Southern States, this irregular and 
illegal disfranchisement of the blacks has been converted 
into a semblance of law by the adoption of new State con- 
stitutions. 

To some extent the restriction of the franchise has been 
acquiesced in by the wisest leaders of the negro race. This 
is the attitude of Booker T. Washington, the eminent prin- 
cipal of Tuskeegee Institute, who seeks the salvation of 
the negro through industrial education, material betterment 
and moral elevation, and believes that "the general polit- 
ical agitation drew the attention of our people away from 

Booker Taliaferro Washington. Born a slave in Virginia, about 1859; worked 
his way through Hampton Institute, Va., whence he was graduated in 1875; 
taught at Hampton Institute until selected by Alabama State authorities to be 
head of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 1881 ; made honorary A. M. by 
Harvard University, 1896; LL.D. by Dartmouth College, 1901; author of "Up 
from Slavery," (1901), "Character Building," (1902), "Story of My Life and 
Work," (1903), etc. 

501 



502 Booker T. Washington 

the more fundamental matters of perfecting themselves in 
the industries at their doors and in securing property. " At 
the same time he sees the unfairness and injustice to the 
negro of much that has been done. "More and more I am 
convinced," he writes in his autobiography entitled Up 
from Slavery (p. 86), "that the final solution of the politi- 
cal end of our race problem will be, for each State that 
finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the fran- 
chise, to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and 
without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both 
races alike. Any other course, my daily observation in the 
South convinces me, will be unjust to the negro, unjust to 
the white man, and unfair to the rest of the States in the 
Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at some time we 
shall have to pay for." 

The address which is here given sets forth Mr. Wash- 
ington's characteristic ideas, and is the one which first 
brought him into national prominence. Of its immediate 
motive, Mr. Washington says: "The thing that was upper- 
most in my mind was the desire to say something that 
would cement the friendship of the races and bring about 
hearty co-operation between them." Its reception is indi- 
cated by the following telegram sent by the editor of the 
Atlanta Constitution to a New York paper: "I do not 
exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker T. Wash- 
ington's address yesterday was one of the most notable 
speeches, both as to character and as to the warmth of its 
reception, ever delivered to a Southern audience. The ad- 
dress was a revelation. The whole speech is a platform 
upon which blacks and whites can stand with full justice 
to each other." 



The Race Problem 503 

[Booker T. Washington, at the opening of the Atlanta (Ga.) Exposition, 
September 18, 1895.] 

MR. President, and Gentlemen of the Board of 
Directors, and Citizens: One-third of the jjopu- 
lation of the South is of the negro race. No enter- 
prise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this 
section can disregard this element of our population, and 
reach the highest success. I but convey to you, ]Mr. Presi- 
dent and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race 
when I say, that in no way have the value and manhood of 
the American negro been more fittingly and generously rec- 
ognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposi- 
tion, at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that 
will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than 
any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom. 

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will 
awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Igno- 
rant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first 
years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the 
bottom; that ^ seat in Congress or the State legislature was 
more sought than real estate or industrial skill ; that the po- 
litical convention or stump speaking had more attractions 
than starting a dairy farm or truck garden. 

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a 
friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel 
was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" 

The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: 
"Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the 
signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the 
distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your 
bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for 
water was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you 
are." 

The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the 
injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of 
fresh sparkling water, from the mouth of the Amazon river. 
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition 



504 Booker T. Washington 

in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of 
cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, 
who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down 
your bucket where you are," — cast it down in making 
friends, in every manly way, of the people of all races by 
whom we are surrounded. 

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in 
domestic service, and in the professions. And in this con- 
nection it is well to bear in mind that, whatever other sins 
the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business 
pure and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given 
a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is 
this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this 
chance. 

Our greatest danger is that, in the great leap from slavery 
to freedom, we may overlook the fact that the masses of us 
are to live by the productions of our hands ; and fail to keep 
in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to 
dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skill 
into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in pro- 
portion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial 
and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the 
useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as 
much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at 
the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor 
should we permit our grievances to overshadow our oppor- 
tunities. 

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of 
those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the 
prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat 
what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where 
you are." 

Cast it down among the eight million negroes whose habits 
you know, whose fidelity and love you liave tested in days 
when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fire- 
sides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, 
-^without strikes and labor wars, — tilled vour fields, cleared 



The Race Problem 505 

your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought 
forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped 
make possible this magnificent representation of the prog- 
ress of the South. 

Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and 
encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to 
education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they 
will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places 
in your fields, and run your factories. 

While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the 
past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the 
most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people 
that the world has seen. 

As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, — in 
nursing your children, watching by the sick bed of your 
mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear- 
dimmed eyes to their graves, — so in the future, in our hum- 
ble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no for- 
eigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives if need be 
in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, 
civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make 
the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely 
social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the 
hand in all things essential to mutual progress. 

There is no defense or security for any of us except in 
the highest intelligence and development of all. If any- 
where there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth 
of the negro, let these eff"orts be turned into stimulating, en- 
couraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent 
citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand 
per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed — 
"blessing him that gives and him that takes." 

There is no escape through law of man or God from the 
inevitable : 

" The laws of changeless justice bind 
Oppressor with oppressed ; 
And close as sin and suffering joined 
We march to fate abreast." 



5o6 Booker T. Washington 

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling 
the load upward, or they will pull against you the load 
downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the 
ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelli- 
gence and progress ; we shall contribute one-third to the 
business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall 
jDrove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, re- 
tarding every effort to advance the body politic. 

Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our 
humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not 
expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership 
here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens, 
remember the path that has led from these to the inventions 
and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam 
engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the 
management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden 
Avithout contact with thorns and thistles. While we take 
pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent ef- 
forts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this 
exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for 
the constant help that has come to our educational life, not 
only from the Southern States, but especially from North- 
ern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant 
stream of blessing and encouragement. 

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation 
of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and 
that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will 
come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle 
rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything 
to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any de- 
gree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges 
of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be 
I^repared for the exercise of these privileges. The oppor- 
tunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infi- 
nitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an 
opera house. 

In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years 



The Race Problem 507 

has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us 
so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity oiFered 
by the Exposition; and here, bending as it were over the 
altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race 
and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three 
decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the 
great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors 
of the South you shall have at all times the patient, sympa- 
thetic help of my race: only let this be constantly in mind, 
that while from representations in these buildings of the 
product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and 
art, much good will come ; yet far above and beyond material 
benefits will be that higher good that (let us pray God) will 
come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial 
animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer 
absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to 
the mandates of law. This — this — coupled with our mate- 
rial prosperity, Avill bring into our beloved South a new 
heaven and a new earth. 



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